Personfication

Personification

Grandmother speaking

The sadness held by her grandmother finally becomes hers as well. That the secret for her grandmother's sadness will be revealed to her inevitably and she will carry both this burden and the childish instinct of escapism.

Anthropomorphism

Simile

Simile

Anthropomorphism

Alliteration

Metaphor

tea

Assonance

Simile

Simile

Enjambment

Personification

May pertain to the fact that the grandmother believes in horoscopes or zodiac signs that may be the reason for her sadness.

Metaphor condensation of water on kettle

relating to the equinox

Imagery Late afternoon

Vintage stove, may be a brand name

Assonance

Repetition

Use of forever twice indicating the permanence of death.

Canadian Song

Metaphor and Symbolism

It can be assumed that the doll referred to in this stanza is one made of porcelain. What it has all in common with the prints and the stuffed animal is that they look like things that had life but there's a bleakness to them, like a lack of soul.

A doll itself symbolizes childhood innocence. In the stanza, the doll isn't even painted yet - which means his childhood was unfulfilled, or only beginning but ended early because Jack Frost decided to shut down the project.

Symbolism and Metpahor

Frosting would symbolize something you can use to hide something. Referring to the coffin as a frosted cake may be referring to that fact, that the coffin hides Arthur's true state.

Metaphor

Metaphor

Personification

Personification

The loon is personified by the child by her visualizing it staying silent instead of speaking out.

The child realizes that Arthur could not go be a page in the court if his eyes are shut up so tight and thus ends up in a state of uncertainty.

Imagery

All of the poem is full of vivid imagery. The child describes the funeral in great detail including other things in the room such as the loon and the chromographs which coincidentally have both significant and unusual connections with Arthur's death. Bishop also uses a lot of word that would be associated with frigidness and the utter motionlessness of death.

Internal Rhyme

Internal Rhyme

Diction

Descriptions are are vivid but seem limited to vocabulary because of the child's age.

Ex.: Arthur's coffin was a little frosted cake...He was all white, like a doll

Alliteration

Alliteration

The speaker assumes that the British royalty in the paintings have invited Arthur to become a page at court. This is a comforting thought but then she questions how he could possibly go if his eyes shut tight and the roads deep in snow.

Juxtaposition, Symbolism

Again, similar to the loon, there is the use of the colors white and red again to juxtapose life and death. The red representing life captured in and of itself while white represents the reality of death (the loon placed on a white table, Arthur with red hair placed in a white coffin that resembles a frosted cake).

Allusion

Jack Frost from mythology is known as a mischievous sprite that brings the frosty weather. One of the earlier depictions or tales about him is that he paints the leaves of the trees during autumn red, orange, yellow, or brown.

The fifth stanza describes Arthur's body. He is described as a doll that hasn't been painted yet by Jack Frost except for his hair.

Symbolism

Lilies symbolize that the soul of the departed has received restored innocence after death.

Loons for the First Nations is a solitary bird of the wilderness that symbolizes tranquility, serenity and the reawakening of old hopes, wishes and dreams. The Loon relies on water and water is a symbol for dreams and multiple levels of consciousness, thus Loons teach us to follow our hopes, dreams and wishes. Thus if it on a frozen lake and seems to be frozen in time itself, it could mean a halt to dreaming and hoping.

The mother calls the child to say goodbye to Arthur. The child understands that Arthur is departing for somewhere but I din't think she fully understood the concept of death and how he was dead. He/she gives Arthur lilies. Then describes his coffin as well as the loon eyeing it

In the second stanza, the child refers and focuses on the stuffed loon. The speaker, being a child, animates the loon, hoping that it had something to say. But it doesn't so he tells himself that he is merely keeping his thoughts to himself. The child likens the marble topped table to its original environment. Then talks about the features of the stuffed animal. It's breast being cold and caressable referring the fact that it's stuffed. Cold because it was lifeless but still caressable because the body is still there, almost frozen in time.

She also mentions that its red glass eye is much to be desired. I'm not sure what this means but with reference to Arthur's dead body and the last line in the poem as well as both the picture of the royalty and the loon having open eyes - what's desirable is the despite not being there at all, these things seem immortalized because their eyes are open while Arthur had his eyes closed clearly signifying the harsh reality that he is dead.

Paraphrase

Arthur has recently passed away. In the opening scene, we see him being laid out by the speaker's mother in the parlor under what are essentially pictures or photographic prints of British royalty. And then under those pictures is a stuffed loon (aquatic bird). Bishop then follows this with the detail of the loon being shot and stuffed with the dead boy's dad of the same name - Arthur.

I find it interesting that the speaker would notice that he is placed under static objects which don't even embody life. The prints of royalty and the loon - including Arthur, all of them seem so still and dead. Like mere shells left behind of what they once were.

Title

From first glance, the title itself is very interesting. Based off of it, I thought this was going to be something about the indigenous population in Nova Scotia. A perspective on colonialism.

Symbolism, author has a bad relationship with her mother so she associates her with death.

use of repetition

Pattern Structure

• 5 Stanza Poem
• Free Verse
• No Rhyme Scheme

The enjambment between the first and second lines causes us to pause and contemplate how ridiculous is this ‘fluster’ that occurs when we lose our keys.

Some things in the world are meant to be lost, were created for that purpose, or they just innately want to be lost. So when you lose something, it's really not that big of a deal and you shouldn't cry over it because the thing was going to get lost in the first place.

She seems to affirm that loss is part of the human condition: we lose both significant and insignificant things constantly and should thus accept this as a natural part of life, and even master this practice so as to remove any sensation of disaster we may take from it. These two points will be repeated throughout the poem so as to emphasise them.

Pattern Structure

1. Villanelle

The villanelle is of French origin that is made up of 19 lines. It consists of five tercets and one final quatrain in the end. The first and third line is repeated in throughout the entire poem often alternately in each stanza so that seems more of a ballad. A villanelle has no specific meter but does uphold a rhyme scheme of ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA.

20th century villanelles are often in iambic pentameter and Bishop did One Art in this form however, she sometimes allows herself an extra syllable in some of the lines indicating a gradual break in the poetic voice till the last stanza. One of the things she also does is slightly modify the lines which were meant to be repeated in each stanza. She consistently repeats, "The art of losing isn't hard to master." until the last stanza where she slightly she slightly changes it too, "The art of losing's not too hard to master...". While with the other line about disaster, she keeps changing its phrasing in each stanza.

There is a subtle change from the third to the fourth stanza, a perfect split in keeping with the poem’s rigid structure. Almost imperceptibly, the speaker switches from addressing the reader to drawing on her own experience. It is here that Bishop begins to undermine her meticulous structural details and carefully impassive tone. “I lost my mother’s watch”, she states, an admission that seems to come from nowhere. However, the casual tone is disappearing; the inexplicable mention of this personal aspect of the speaker’s life has upped the emotional stakes. As the stanza continues, it becomes clear that this is a further attempt to demonstrate the universality of loss. The picture becomes bigger and the distance larger. The exclamation: “And look!” betrays yet more emotion, despite it’s apparent offhand tone. Now Bishop tells us to look at our losses on a bigger scale: the houses we lived in – not so disastrous except for the use of the word “loved” here. Indeed, these were just places we lived in, but we nonetheless also loved in them.

In this stanza, the poet is almost treating losing something as a sort of skill or talent. Lose more of the association and background of that thing, and do it in a short amount of time.She's saying do it deliberately now, this time with things which aren't concrete, which is easier to lose farther and faster. We have moved on to the next level, losing something from the mind. It's an art that you've got to hone it until you are essentially you become someone with Alzheimer's. But do not worry (none of these will bring disaster) we can manage the loss just fine.

Attitude: (initally) Distance and numb yourself from the pain and then find ways to cope so you don't lose yourself too

Theme: Loss of a loved one is normal and natural. It takes effort, however, to cope with it.

Poem Deconstructed

Bishop, through this poem, shows us that loss is a natural thing that happens to us and must therefore master it to help ourselves and for it to be not such as disaster. By this form of exposure therapy and acceptance as well as creative output, we grow numb to the pain and can handle it better.

The poem also is almost advisory, with the focus being on the reader before it shifted to the poet's own personal losses.

Background and Theme

This poem's theme is that there are many way to cope with loss and one of them is channeling it through something you love or creative output. In this case, Bishop does this through writing.

Bishop has lost many loved ones in her life, both her mother and her father. This poem may be seen as a nod to her own life.

Bishop also structures the poem in a way that as the poem increase, so do the importance of the objects.

Becomes an extended metaphor for the loss of other things the poet loves such as past homes and relationships

Ideas are getting more and more abstract. These mentions of place are perhaps symbolic of the memories she had of them, or of the relationships she once had there.

She misses them but it she is still okay and everything is fine.

Elizabeth BishopOne Art by Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Bishop’s One Art is a poem whose apparent detached simplicity is undermined by its rigid villanelle structure and mounting emotional tension. Perhaps her most well-known poem, it centres around the theme of loss and the way in which the speaker – and, by extension, the reader – deals with it. Here, Bishop converts losing into an art form and explores how, by potentially mastering this skill, we may distance ourselves from the pain of loss. At eight months old, Elizabeth Bishop lost her father, her mother then succumbed to mental illness and she later lost her lover to suicide. Therefore, we may see this poem as in part autobiographical. In it, the poet presents a list of things we may lose in life, increasing in importance, until the final culmination in the loss of a loved one.

One Art Analysis

The title should not be overlooked. With these two small words, Elizabeth Bishop encompasses the poem’s entire purpose: to remove the pain of loss by first levelling out everything that we lose; from door keys to houses to people (One), and second by mastering the fact of losing through practise (Art).

The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. In the first stanza, Bishop sets out her intentions. She seems to affirm that loss is part of the human condition: we lose both significant and insignificant things constantly and should thus accept this as a natural part of life, and even master this practice so as to remove any sensation of disaster we may take from it. These two points will be repeated throughout the poem so as to emphasise them.

Lose something every day.

In the second stanza, she invites the reader in by naming two extremely common things to lose: keys and time. The enjambment between the first and second lines causes us to pause and contemplate how ridiculous is this ‘fluster’ that occurs when we lose our keys. She eases us slowly into her idea: the universality of these two occurrences allows us to relate and thus agree that indeed, this is not too hard to master and is certainly not a disaster.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. The emotional tension begins to subtly build in the third stanza as Bishop incites us to further our practise, broadening the scope of our loss. Here, the things we lose are more related to thought and memory: people, places and plans that, with time, naturally escape our head and no longer form part of our lives. This is harder for the reader to accept and the familiar affirmation that this will not bring disaster becomes less comforting. House keys and an hour here and there seem commonplace and natural and to consciously lose these things to aid our mastering of losing does not seem too difficult. Places, names and plans require a larger effort and a degree of emotional distancing that the second stanza did not call for.

There is a subtle change from the third to the fourth stanza, a perfect split in keeping with the poem’s rigid structure. Almost imperceptibly, the speaker switches from addressing the reader to drawing on her own experience. It is here that Bishop begins to undermine her meticulous structural details and carefully impassive tone. “I lost my mother’s watch”, she states, an admission that seems to come from nowhere. However, the casual tone is disappearing; the inexplicable mention of this personal aspect of the speaker’s life has upped the emotional stakes. As the stanza continues, it becomes clear that this is a further attempt to demonstrate the universality of loss. The picture becomes bigger and the distance larger. The exclamation: “And look!” betrays yet more emotion, despite it’s apparent offhand tone. Now Bishop tells us to look at our losses on a bigger scale: the houses we lived in – not so disastrous except for the use of the word “loved” here. Indeed, these were just places we lived in, but we nonetheless also loved in them.

The first person speaker continues in the fifth stanza as the poet attempts to further distance herself from loss. She is stepping further and further back and the picture she is painting reaches a higher geographical level: to cities and continents. Nevertheless, this is undermined by a wistful tone: the cities she lost were “lovely ones” and, although she maintains that their loss was not a disaster, she does admit that she misses them. Faced with this unusual outlook, the reader is forced to ask at this point: if the loss of a continent is no disaster, what would thus constitute one?

Bishop is also a traveller and called a lot of places home

Umm it kind of is?? If you're say a conquistador and you lose two cities, some realms, two rivers, and a continent - it's bad. The magnitude of it would be devastating

The poet’s internal command ("Write it!") alerts us to a couple of things: first of all, this is a very self-aware nod to the fact that the poet is writing a poem; secondly, it shows us that she has difficulty admitting the pain of her loss, even to herself.

Tone shift from confidence to yeah, it's not hard but you have to make an effort (more realistic in expectations to the reader; advice)

Title Revisit

The title should not be overlooked. With these two small words, Elizabeth Bishop encompasses the poem’s entire purpose: to remove the pain of loss by first levelling out everything that we lose; from door keys to houses to people (One), and second by mastering the fact of losing through practise (Art).

he fifth stanza leads us to a brief look at the structure of the poem. The villanelle allows for a break in its pattern of tercets and tight rhyme, giving away to one quatrain with a repeated rhyme. Just as the structure cracks, as does the poetic voice. The final stanza opens with a dash, which could perhaps be seen as an attempt at a casual tone but in fact serves to slow the poem down here, allowing for yet more emotion to permeate the final words. The reader is forced to consider this “you”, and we see how the poem has taken a journey: starting with the little objects, going through thought and memory, to houses, places and continents forming one huge picture until at the end, zooming in on and pinpointing this “you”. A “you” with, as we infer from the parentheses, a personality, a memorable tone of voice and gestures. A person lost; an irreplaceable entity, in fact.

Symbolism

All of a sudden, we’re not just talking about misplaced material goods. Now we’re thinking more abstractly about the things of emotional value that we lose.

Shift in tone, becoming more personal

Tone, however, is still sarcastic and ironic.

• Emotionally symbolic to Bishop.
• May refer to her relationship with her mother, and time lost to spend moments with her

Personification

The object is personified

Irony

This stanza is somewhat urging you to just lose things on a daily basis, because why not? Just accept that emotion, how flustered you get from first realizing that you lost something and then that unsettling feeling of not finding it yet, whether it be keys or time you decided to use unwisely.

Title: One Art

I initially thought that its about something that would be seen as not being a medium of art and the poet defending that it actually is an art form. For example, living your life. How you design your future and how you go about with it is can be considered an art form in a way that you create something with specific techniques and add your own personal input into it like emotions: are you the carpe diem type of person or go with the flow and chill? Pessimistic, optimistic, or an absurdist?

The fact that the word one is in front of art signifies also that it is referring to a singular type of art so I assumed that this art encompasses the various types of arts in terms of creative output which is why I though it was about life and about how to make it worth living.

Tulle = not only is it a romanticized fabric used in ballerina skirts and bridal wear (most commonly in veils), the ethereal and transparent qualities of this lightweight, fine netting have come to serve as a symbol of the contradictions associated with womanhood: delicate yet strong, pure but sexy.

It's a very feminine type of fabric that has made comeback on the runway and in the high fashion industry as a reaction to athletic wear. Also, it's a traditionally feminine fabric that made it's resurgence during the #metoo movement, which a very far reach but it can be also coincidental.

in today's fashion represents a woman's ability to choose what to conceal and what to reveal.

Think of what we're doing here as like peeling layers off onions, ultimately our goal is too understand Dickinson's mind or get to the center and each layer we peel off is pieces we have come to understand

This layer is more of the duality, I think, of Emily Dickinson. She lived in seclusion but instead of stumping her growth, it did the opposite and allowed her to become more productive. You can also say, with regards to the tippet, that her outward appearance may be plain looking but she has a very complex and creative mind or maybe even extended metaphors

The tippet made of tulle is also a reference to one Dickinson's poems called Because I Could Not Stop For Death. I felt as if the two poems are connected (that poem is about death and immortality taking her on a carriage ride to death's house. At first she was comfortable with both of them but then she realizes that she has made a mistake) and that this poem is when she is in the house itself or tomb.

Another thing is the wooden chair which I found interesting. Michelle also pointed it out when I asked her about it and mentioned the carriage. So what I did was compare the two: a carriage has wheels which used to transport you from one place to another. In Dickinson's poem this was birth to death, and the wheels themselves also symbolize a cyclical nature between life and death. A chair is stationary. It's not moving in one place to another, it is one spot - death

complexity of thoughts or final layer meant to reveal the deeper meaning of the poem restricted or protected by stays (like corsets) and various other things meant to keep those thoughts to herself

During the 19th century, polar exploration dominated popular culture in both Europe and America

simile

polarity may also be alluding to her reclusiveness which may be seen as giving people a cold shoulder

Free Verse

Shift, from undressing presently to past tense in which he has had sex with her

metaphor

The whole poem can also be about reading an Emily Dickinson poem but I prefer the onion analogy. When writing this poem, Billy Collins also talks about how he wanted to end the questions regarding Dickinson's sexuality - so he does this by attempting to have sex with her. But is more or less a tribute to the female poet - basically how important she is for him and the connection he feels when reading her poems. And how his years of study of her and his personal enjoyment to the poems have allowed him to kind of understand her to the point that he feels privy towards having undressed or say dissected and examined her. Most poem references though are those mainly about death.

Billy Collins touches on all major themes that Emily Dickinson covers in her poems.

1. Flowers and gardens: Farr notes that Dickinson's "poems and letters almost wholly concern flowers" and that allusions to gardens often refer to an "imaginative realm ... wherein flowers [are] often emblems for actions and emotions" (orchard)
2. Morbidity: Dickinson's poems reflect her "early and lifelong fascination" with illness, dying and death.
3. The Undiscovered Continent: Academic Suzanne Juhasz considers that Dickinson saw the mind and spirit as tangible visitable places and that for much of her life she lived within them.[156] Often, this intensely private place is referred to as the "undiscovered continent" and the "landscape of the spirit" and embellished with nature imagery. At other times, the imagery is darker and forbidding—castles or prisons, complete with corridors and rooms—to create a dwelling place of "oneself" where one resides with one's other selves.
4. Gospel poems: Throughout her life, Dickinson wrote poems reflecting a preoccupation with the teachings of Jesus Christ and, indeed, many are addressed to him.[155] She stresses the Gospels' contemporary pertinence and recreates them, often with "wit and American colloquial language"

To compare pages with a state of matter such as water gives off the impression that you have to at least put effort into understanding before you could 'slip' inside. I like how he uses slip because after peeling the layers or dividing the water, slipping in doesn't take much effort. Like you gained enough foreground to comprehend everything else.

simile

innuendo

A bonnet is the type of headgear that you mostly on cartoon babies or what the women from the pilgrims wore when depicted in films. It's something that keeps their hair in place while protecting it from dust and often secured at the chin with bow. It's available for all genders but during the 19th century the term was catered more towards women's headgear while men's headgear are called hats.

Hats themselves are for both decorative and protective functions. I believe the bonnet is layer that pertains to Dickinson's syntax and structure (like her dashes and capitalization) having both protective and decorative functions cuz you'd just think it's pretty on paper and then not htink much of it. The manner which he does this is with a light forward pull which I think says much about how he regards her as an influence to him. He doesn't go about it aggressively but with care.

the many deaths that happened in Dickinson's life

reference to Some Keep the Sabbath Going To Church

reference to My life had stood - a loaded gun

reference to I felt a Funeral in my Brain

reference to Hope Is the Thing With Feathers

Another reference to Because I Could Not Stop For Death

reference to I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died

Emily Dickinson never published, except anonymously, in her lifetime. It was only after her death that things started to unravel and her works are revealed.

reference to her dashes in most of the poems

ashes often between a subject and a verb. They're kind of interruptive, strange dashes that don't seem to do anything more than reveal her love of the dash, but then there are other dashes to me that are indications of a leap of thought. Whereas a comma or a semicolon doesn't get the sudden transition as she's moving from one word to another -- so, a sort of zigzag type of logic. So, the tension in her poems -- there's a feeling of reliability about the meter, which is the common meter; there's a kind of political vocabulary that's going on, and then there's a very radical and audacious and daring content and a completely original use of language.

The swan that gracefully moves on a lake is a picture of elegance in motion but what is hidden from the eye is the activity going on beneath the water’s surface. We don’t see the hard work conducted by the swan’s webbed feet which propels the graceful motion we see and admire.

The swan’s movement is an ideal metaphor for expertise and excellence. We admire the very best in their fields because they are able to make the sublime look easy. They are like white swans. They do all the hard work in the shadows and display excellence and elegance in the open. It is common consensus that genius makes the hard look ridiculously easy, thus giving the impression that it is effortless.

And Collins cannot help but note it all down in his notebook

Titanic reference

There is this myth that Emily Dickinson only wears white and this myth was first perpetuated because of Higginson's description of her in the white dress and shawl, the bonnet may have come from the only authenticated portrait of her and is a whole separate thing Collins alluded to.

So anyways that myth has been disproven but there is a long white dress with mother of pearl buttons in the Emily Dickinson museum believed to have been Dickinson's and what she wore in her 40s to 50s. It is a replica though and the original was brought to Amherst Historical Society. It's actually a house dress so women wear it when they do chores and it's also inexpensive, so nothing fancy there.

I can't say there's a whole load of significance attached to this dress to Emily Dickinson herself. In her poems she uses white in association with things we do associate to the color white in the first place like soul or a wedding dress and religious things but there doesn't seem to be particularly weird about it's usage so I'll assume it's an allusion.

the simple pocket on her right hip, about the size of a woman’s hand, big enough to hold a scrap of paper and a pencil. It turned the dress into a portable desk, in which she could carry her poems wherever she went—increasingly, as she got older, inside her own house, from kitchen to bedroom to drawing room to conservatory. In her pocket, the envelopes she had opened, flattened, and scribbled upon preserved her lines until she could take them to the real desk in her bedroom. By the light of a kerosene lamp, she made fair copies and stitched them into fascicles.

Her expression here has given me the impression that she is dead and by this time the countless connection to the poem Because I Could Not Stop For Death hit me like a ton of Amherst bricks. Not only that, the description in following stanzas such as the polar explorer and iceberg of her nakedness also seem to symbolizes the coldness of her body.

Dickinson is said to write her poems in a little desk by a window overlooking an orchard in Amherst (Homestead)

This stanza reminded me of the hundreds of letters exchanged with Emily Dickinson and some of her friends. So I thought of the dress as a pages of a book, with complicated letters or button that it takes forever for Collins to move on, turn the page, or according to the poem: part the fabric but he feels the need to dissect each word.

• Buddha achieved enlightenment through meditation, the fact that the Collins is stating that he is a model of concentration is again referring not only to the historical aspect but also for the actual sculpture and iconographies or statues you see of him where he is in a meditative state - demonstrating concentration.

Allusion to Previous Poets: This line reminds me of Shelley's Ozymandius

All allusion to Buddhist teachings and life of Buddha

Analogy: Snow as haze in the mind, that Buddha is helping clean up through shoveling, a meditative state.

Symbolism: The cards and chocolate, shoveling itself (simple pleasures in life)

Attitude: Objective

aliteration

It's interesting that he uses clouds in this part of the poem and how they both seem to have created it by themselves and are lost in it.

At first I assumed that it must be fog because of the word "lost" and that maybe the speaker is getting distracted, but that would not make any sense at all. Having one's head in the clouds is a phrase that implies that.

Clouds in western mythology or religion is often associated with the homes of gods or angels. But in Eastern culture, clouds are more associated with transition and transformation. I mean essentially a cloud is a sort of union between water and air. Often water is associated with cleansing, life, and freedom. Air also is connected with the mind, spirit, and the soul especially in the zodiac.

So with that in mind, I believe this means that the speaker is slowly sinking into meditation or concentration with the Buddha - slowly transitioning.

Sudden clouds - metaphor

Billy Collins uses a seemingly ordinary, simple, yet risky task in order to demonstrate how one can find spirituality, purpose, and enjoyment in everyday moments. In the poem the tone is much more respectful. Collins shows his respect for men like Buddha through his literal language. “Even the season is wrong for him.” This is not implied by his serene expression", Buddha is symbolized as a selfless man who is shoveling a driveway that not even his. Buddha will not stop the job until the goal is reached; Collins is very admiral of this type of behavior. “He has thrown himself into shoveling snow / as if it were the purpose of his existence,” “and he inside his generous pocket of silence, “It is evident in the poem that Collins respects Buddha but, with the use of his language he makes the reader respect Buddha. Since Buddha is personified by all the natural good people in the world, the reader appreciates these kinds of people much more by the end of the poem.

Poem relates to Collins' childhood in New York of shoveling snow which is a hard job for one man

If one has an unpleasant task, why not do it in the company of your hero? Why not draw near the master to watch and learn from a place of proximity and intimacy, instead of through the lens of distance, history and third-party interpretations?

Shoveling snow with Buddha taught Collins about patience, equanimity, silence, the satisfaction of a job well done and the simple pleasures of community, cards and chocolate. Obviously, that’s not all the Buddha has to teach him, but it’s certainly a place to start.

Hot chocolate and cards, asks for simple reward.

In this poem, I am reminded about how often we forget that the journey is the destination, and how often we want to be anywhere but in the now.

It also kinda says that respected men are humble and do not stop till a goal is reached

I hope I have seduced you into conversion.

• Not only is Buddha in a secondary location that is not where is is usually seen, he is also not dressed for the occasion except wearing snow boots, but he is also someone from the past who happened to drop by in the present
• ironic and out of place for him to be there
• mountain, round shoulder = assonance

• anthropomorphism - act of attributing human qualities to those who aren't human and he does this by asking if they could go inside, warm up, and play cards
• Yes, buddha is a human - sort of. He was human then he was awakened then he became something else - an omniscient being and is like a prophet that has come to teach the world of freedom of rebirth. This endless cycle of suffering until Nirvana is attained which is basically reincarnation.

Like you know, the seasons.

Yes, it is wrong because he's always somewhere more temperate. However, I feel like winter mirrors his state of mind in terms of tranquility and calmness.

Often winter is associated with death or passing especially with poets such as Shakespeare. Here, though, we focus on the stillness and quietness of everything, where the only thing you hear is the scrape of the shovel in the snow and snow being tossed to a side.

The argument could be made that everything shrouded in snow is like your mind in haze. And by meditation or cleaning up this snow, we reconnect with the present and genuine conscious living.

By this time we can confirm that Buddha is indirectly teaching the speaker to be just there. To just be mindful of the things around you or be present, and to do that you don't need to say anything. And by doing this, you'll be closer to enlightenment.

Snow (symbolism aside from haze)

• Snow is an intermediary state between fluid water and solid ice. Ice being a more solidified compact state than water. Also both are unified forms.
• When a teacher has to reach out to a student who is far beneath his or her level of knowledge and understanding, he or she cannot allow the water to just flow freely, it has to be dressed up in metaphors and it has to be paced. In order for the student to understand a new concept, the teacher needs to create a point of reference by using examples, anecdotes, stories, and analogies. Thus snowflakes represent the need to explain gradually, step by step, in a language that is accessible to the student, like say shoveling where you take it one shovel-full at a time.
• Ultimately, the intention is that the snow should melt and turn to water. Once the snow falls and blocks our driveways and streets, we want it to melt. In the education process the student needs to pause which requires a freezing of the water, but then at some point it has to melt and integrate into our system in order for us to grow.

7 stanzas long and no meter

Immediately after awakening, Buddha was concerned whether he should teach the Dharma to others. He was concerned that humans were so overpowered by ignorance, greed, and hatred that they could never recognize the path or a driveway, which is subtle, deep and hard to grasp. However, in the story, Brahmā Sahampati convinced him, arguing that at least some will understand it. The Buddha relented and agreed to teach, clearing a path in the snow for his followers.

• parallelism

This is in allusion to having achieved Nirvana, and just being content with what you have and cruising through life

• Uses repetition with the phrase, "I say...but Buddha/he [ignores me]"
• This stanza is one of the most important points of the poem because it shows a clear difference between the two people who shovel the snow and exactly what this is metaphor for people who talk about religion too much but have not achieved heightened spirituality, or basically the perfect amalgamation of haughty spiritual ideas and something as mundane and an everyday thing such as shoveling snow.
• I mean what does he know of the true religion? He is aware he is conversing with a religious figure.
• In a way, he is right: the religion of snow - tranquility and peace, the sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky - being the now.

• Picturesque depiction of snow, not a nuisance, the journey is beautiful

• In the present
• Shifts from his description of Buddha, a spectator, to it being about the activity

Buddha is often seen smiling in most depictions and I this believe this line means that this is because he has come to terms with the universe, in past, present and future, and everything else in between. So the smile is like a ribbon around that agreement or understanding.

Again, I'm not a Buddhist.

Uses rhetorical question

When you are enlightened or awakened, or trying to get into that state - it is assumed that you would not do anything as strenuous as shoveling snow where you are in danger of getting back pain. That's what we see - iconographies.

Then again, the point of meditation is to become mindful, give your full attention to one thing, to get heightened spiritual awareness or to achieve a state of calm and serenity.

Shoveling snow is boring mechanical work, sure you get tired, but then again, your body has to keep repeating only a handful of actions that you need to accomplish the task. Your mind becomes restless, and giving into restlessness is what makes the world so loud and bold.

For example, when do chores like washing the dishes or sweeping floors or even just eating, I like to listen to music or podcasts, or talking with someone at least - keep my mind preoccupied.

I feel like shoveling snow is presented as a form of meditation, Buddha is set as an example of one concentrating at the task at hand.