Great Regulars: Emily Dickinson's seventeen-line poem,

"The Robin's my Criterion for Tune," contains a famous line that the poet used to describe her world-view, "Because I see--New Englandly." And because she looked with the eyes of an American New Englander, she dramatizes the things she sees and experiences in her neck of the woods with pride of place.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Dickinson's The Robin's my Criterion for Tune

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The problem with the portrayal of this poor little rich girl is that it is painted by a person who knew the wealthy woman at age twenty and then did not see her again until the privileged woman was forty-three. Yet the speaker expects her readers/listeners to accept this pathetic portrayal as factual.

This poem sneers at this woman and draws conclusions about her life about which it is impossible for the narrator to know.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Kay's Pathedy of Manners

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In the eleventh quatrain, the speaker's companion branches into the many lives the speaker has lived. Not only has he crossed these fields and valleys as a youth, but also as he was maturing to adulthood, he experienced these pleasant hikes many times at many different times of his life, thus "like the cloudy shadows/Across the country blown/We two fare on for ever,/But not we two alone."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: March Poet--A. E. Housman

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By clicking on the U. S. map offered in this section of the Web site, the reader can locate his own state to find out about events close to home. In addition to National Poetry Month activities, however, the state site includes information about the state's poet laureate, if it has one, and a list of other poets who hail from the state.

Of all of the projects and activities, the "Poetry Map" feature is probably the most useful one offered for the dissemination and promotion of poetry information.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: National Poetry Month--April 2009

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The speaker refers to the notion that light-skinned, blonde women were held in higher esteem than dark-skinned, raven-haired women. This fact, of course, simply reflects the part of the world where the speaker resides--in a zone where less sun would encourage less melanin production in human skin and hair.

The object of Petrarchan sonnets, "Laura," is described as "fair-haired," and some of the "dark lady" sonnets protest against the idealization of women found in these and earlier highly romanticized poems.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 127

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The speaker then comically creates the image of his lips changing place with the keys on the keyboard. Her fingers are gently pressing those keys, and he would prefer her fingers be playing over his lips. He offers the melodramatic notion that her fingers playing over those "dancing chips" or keys is "Making dead wood more bless'd than living lips."

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 128

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The speaker makes it clear that the human mind is capable of understanding that the strong sex urge should be eschewed, except for procreation; thus he claims that the whole world knows this fact, yet the irony of the human condition plays out time and time again: despite the knowledge of right behavior, the human often falls pray to the false promise of "the heaven that leads men to this hell."

Instead of heeding the warning from the soul and from the great spiritual leaders and from great philosophical thinkers who have warned against this satanic act, the weak human being allows himself to be sucked into this depravity over and over again.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 129

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Many beginners in the study of yoga easily grasp the idea that they are not the physical body, but it is more difficult to grasp that they are also not the mind. The body is readily available to sense awareness, but the mind seems to be as invisible (unsensedetectable) as the soul is. One cannot see, hear, taste, touch, or smell the mind.

But the mind is as delusion-invoking as the body. And in yoga meditation, the beginner learns quickly that the mind is even harder to control than the body.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Yogananda's I Am He

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