View this video and write a 2-4 sentence reaction. How do the images influence your interpretation of the poem?
The dead are always looking down on us, they say,
while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich,
they are looking down through the glass bottom boats of heaven
as they row themselves slowly through eternity.
They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth,
and when we lie down in a field or on a couch,
drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon,
they think we are looking back at them,
which makes them lift their oars and fall silent
and wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.
13 comments:
The video really helped me understand the poem because it let me see just what Billy Collins was thinking of when he wrote "The Dead". It was interesting to compare what I thought the poem meant, to what the author was trying to say, because my ideas were sometimes different than those in the video. I really liked the video because it let me realize what Collins was trying to say in his poem.
To me the video was distracting. I think that the poem should have been read before the video so that you have had a time to think about it in your mind before you were shown Billy Collins's version of it in the clip.
I don't think the video was distracting because it helped me understand what the poet was writing about. It helped me understand the whole comcept instead of almost reading in mindlessly and having to go back and read it several more times before you fully understand.
My interpretation of the poem was not a morbid or depressing one, which I believe the video interpretation to be. I think that the monotone narrator did not help to portray the people in heaven as guardians the way I saw them, but rather, as lost souls.
I enjoyed the video version of the poem because i am a very visual person and these kind of images help me to picture a poem like this. I did enjoy the images because it helped me see how realistic the poem was, also showing me what the poet was thinking.
I really liked the poem, and the video made it that much more intersting. Billy Collins, is a very abstract outside the box thinkier, and I like it a lot. He makes good points people dont realize, and makes you really think about the dead, and how they interact with humans.
The video that goes with this poem helped me to realize the literal aspects of the poem, rather than taking it for only the metaphorical value. For example, in the poem when he says that they watch us, I would not normally picture actual people watching us during the day, but rather a light breeze or something that would signify their presence. I do not; however, think the monotone voice helps the poem and that maybe it should have been read with a bit more inflection.
I liked the video because it was a lot more fun to hear and see it instead of just reading it. To me it made the poem more rememberable. I also liked the video because it gave me another perspective on the poem. It made the poem seem a little more dark and creepy than what I would have visualized.
I liked this video, but I didn't think that it helped me understand the poem. It seemed like it was kind of unrelated or just for fun--so it was fun to watch, but it didn't really let me focus on what the poem meant.
The movie distracted me from the actuall poem. It was distracting me from hearing and listening to the entirity of the poem, which to me is more important than a video. I should have had read the poem before I watched the movie.
The video went along great with what the poem wanted to convey. The movement and color really reflected the flow and feel of the poem. However, I felt Collins' monotone voice drug the intensity of the poem down. I almost felt the poem would have been much better if a woman read it with more dynamics.
The video had such literal images to go along with what the poem is saying. I thought Collins' use of words like "drugged" didn't necessarily mean literally drugged as the movie represented. The video made it hard for me to make my own interpretations.
Good for people to know.
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