Friday, December 2, 2011

Blog 1 of 12: The Problem of Describing Trees

     In Robert Hass' poem "The Problem with Describing Trees", Hass is trying to make the point that sometimes words can't be used to describe an event. Certain things just need to be seen or experienced. One can see this argument through the lines:

"The tree danced. No.
The tree capitalized.
No. There are limits to saying
In language, what the tree did."

The face that Hass tries to describe the tree yet fails to describe it in a satisfactory way shows that sometimes there are no words to describe certain events. He makes his point extremely clear by stating "There are limits to saying In language, what the tree did". Once again, there are certain situations in which a visual of what occured is better in terms of description and clarity compared to using words.

     In the line "Dance with me dancer. Oh I will", Hass allows the reader to decide who is the dancer and who is asking that dancer to dance. It seems to be Hass talking to the tree, the tree being the dancer. In class, one student brought up an extremely good point that maybe the poet is talking about "dancing" with words or playing around with words in order to satisfy the description of how Hass wants to describe the tree.

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