Response to Another sonnet for stephan by Alvin lester sitomen

This sonnet I feel is from the perspective of a father to his son, as his son grows through life and as he leaves it. An observation I had while reading this sonnet, is that at the end of the poem Sitomen says that " The boy, the youth, the man are each now gone except in my heart they linger on." When something lingers it seems to me a faded but there presence of something, the remains of what had been there before- I think this shows how though Stephan is still alive within this man like anything else he has begun to fade a sense of moving on. I notice in this poem that this boy, this man, is described in a sense of perfection, see through admirer’s eyes- this person full of wealth of intelligence and yet not anything deeper than pure observations made from an outsiders view. My interpretation of this Sonnet is that it shows the void between Stephan and Sitomen, the unspoken and unbreakable wall keeping them apart.

I think this because in the sonnet the writer keeps repeating the line "I see", never are the words "he is", "there was", said in the sonnet. This shows the void between them because it’s the author explaining his observations what he could physically see and absorb from a distance- it doesn’t lead into Stephan’s thoughts, his take on life, why he turned out to be this way- it doesn’t even allude to who he was. These words only explain the character that Stephan portrayed to the outside world, to those that could look upon him in awe, to those that admired him from afar and all his success. If I were to say "I see a nice man walking by," it simply wouldn’t make sense, your eyes are the only part of you that can’t get to know a person a real level, that can’t tell them apart aside from looks from every other being on this earth. "I see" can only show you the cover of a book- not what is on the inside. Therefore this shows the distance between them how whoever admired Stephan so greatly could never know him on a personal level.

Another reason I believe that this poem shows the void between Stephan and the writer is because as I mentioned before this man and boy is described in a sense of perfection. He seems to be everything that people strive to be and yet I know for a fact that this cannot be who Stephan truly is because no one has can reach perfection. I think that because the writer is only seeing him from the outside he does not know the darkness that lingers within him, he does not know the bad secrets that hide beneath the surface, he cannot see all of Stephan’s regrets and mistakes. The way the author talks about him is as if Stephan is an untouched masterpiece unstained- it’s the way you could talk about someone’s art when you stand back and see all of its glory, without knowing the artist, without knowing the story behind its brilliant strokes.

To conclude I believe that another sonnet for Stephan is about the distance between the writer and this Stephan. I believe this to be true because of how amazing and unrealistically perfect this man is described as and how the author keeps repeating the very distant words, “I see". But maybe if the author wasn’t trying to convey the void in their relationship he could also be trying to convey the closeness of it. That no matter what dark secrets bad pasts, stained memories Stephan possessed, the author could look past that and only see the good in him only see his virtues. And maybe that’s why Stephan continues to

My Sonnet Untitled

In an unrelenting freedom darling one,

You speak to me on wings of gentle sleep

As I depart from you my soul is done;

My heart in chorus begins to simply weep.

And with you I am strong and safe, but no;

Boundless sorrow follows me without you

Alone, I am as fallen leaves in snow:

Withered, old and sad-left to crack then break.

And it is like I have known you always,

Destined love guided by wondrous fate.

No longer trapped by loneliness of days,

I see my soul was never lone, but half

Of you, a cosmic union of this one,

My heart now awake, my searching done.

A couple in Coney island:
A thin tendril holding me to time-
Slipping in slow seconds from my loose grasp.
I raised hand as steady as this moment
And froze time in a white flash.
The blue dripped from the ocean, the color falling from her dress.
And what remained?
The stagnant beauty of life,
The world as it should be
The people just being.

A poem:
A poem is a collection of waves all flowing out into one ocean
A poem is an unseen journey taken by many travelers.
A poem is a song of the heart lyrics spread across a page.
A poem is a friend to confide in to share your deepest worries with.

What happens to a broken life?
Do you try to repair t, pulling through the worn fabric?
Or do you pull the last stitch, letting cloh flutter away-stained with memories
Do you leave this fragmented world behind in your footsteps to be erased by the wind?
Is the release forceful as you pretend its something you wont miss?
Or do you give it distance like you give a kiss

A Couple in Coney Island by Walker Evans

Walker Evans first started out as an aspiring writer his father had a career in advertising, where he wrote ads to persuade people to buy something. Looking up to his father this is where his original dram started but it was in Paris he realized what he truly wanted to do- photographer. Walker Evans didn’t believe in fancy photography, staged moments and objects carefully arranged, or artsy hard to interpret images. He believed that life itself was beautiful and hard to understand as it is. He took photos of life that happened everyday, photos of moments we passed by usually, capturing the simplest things and showing their beauty. This is where this moment came from, “A couple at Coney island,” two people enjoying a personal moment of many that walker Evans captured in his lens. A simple title, a simple picture- of the most complicated thing of all, life that no one can even begins to understand.

In this picture there are two people, a man and a women on a day on the still famous Coney Island boardwalk. At first glance all I saw was a couple standing looking out into the water, but when I look closer I can see the true difference between this and an ad, the woman in particular I find the most interesting. The man in this photograph looks clean, fresh- his suit straight out of the store, his build perfect like a mannequin, his jacket artfully hung over his arm, but his partner is so different from the usual women in most photographs hung on the sturdy arm of a man. Their waists are small and cinched their stature petite and fragile their grasps on the man loose and feeble, hands feminine and slender draped on his shoulder. But this woman is tall almost surpassing the man, her arms are burly like that of a laborer, her waist wide as her loose dress simply hangs around it. If you look in general you can see similarities to her and the other women, but if you look closely you see how she grounds the picture and shows the real aspect of it.  The other thing I noticed most was the way thy held each other-tightly conveying the love that passed between them looking out on the water, the picture taken from behind hiding whatever they see.

I think the meaning behind this photograph was to truly show the beliefs of walker Evans in photography. This picture shows not only the simplicity of life but at this moment in time the simplicity of love. This photo shows a couple looking out over the railing but I think in a way it could symbolize them staring out into the future an unknown place we can’t look into. They look silent to me, still and quiet taking in everything that is happening and grasping onto each other as to perhaps keep a hold of reality, to feel something warm and real beneath their palm, not to get lost in fantasies. They could be sharing small conversation but they look to deep in thought their body language speaking for itself, and walker Evans saw this in the moment, he registered al this in a second in a bright flash, capturing nothing staged, nothing fake- just raw life.