Due: 1/26

Having the Halo scenery and the song “Mad World” adds something to the poem’s meaning. It gives visuals to words; the Poem is very short so there isn’t much to work with to know what the author was thinking when he wrote this poem, but adding the visuals it gives you one of the many possible meanings. Personally I enjoyed it, maybe because yesterday I saw the movie “Donnie Darko” and at the end when Donnie goes back in time to kill himself they play the “Mad World” song. So it reminded me of the movie “Donnie Darko”.

Having the Halo scenery and the “Mad World” song caused me to think the meaning of the poem is about war. The pointless repetition of war caused the halo guy to commit suicide. The song “Mad World” says “worn out places, worn out faces…going nowhere…drown my sorrow, no tomorrow…the dreams where I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had” to me this shows repetitive and boring routine and dying is his escape from it. While the Halo scenery portrays war and the ability to just restart the game again showing the repetitive. But when I read just the poem itself with out the halo or song, it caused me to think that he was committing suicide not for his selfish needs but because the river wanted a kiss from him, showing that he had others in mind when he committed suicide.

Poetry in pop culture: click to see the video
THE SIMPSONS - The Raven (Treehouse of Horror I) - 4 Translation(s) | dotSUB
In one of the Simpson’s Halloween specials they read “The Raven” but reenacted with Simpson’s characters. This makes the poem a little easier to interpret, there are some things that you are supposed to get out of reading it, but are given to you if you see it. This includes tone; tone is a very important thing in a poem so having it given to you makes it easier to interpret.