Poem Response #1

I read the poem 79 by Joachim du Bellay.  The first Line is " I do not write of love: I am no lover." There's plenty of poetry just in the first line, starting with assonance in the of, love, and lover. This first line lets you know what kind of poem it will be. Obviously it won't be a poem about joy and love, for it states that he is not a lover. The first three lines of the poem start with the words " I do not" so there's repetition. There's also an approximate rhyme with the woman, and human and also assonance. Throughout the next two lines the author repeats pleasure and shows assonance with, no, on, and own. So just within the first paragraph there's many elements of poetry. But what really made me choose this poem were the lines and and the meaning behind what's being said. It's actually a pretty sad poem. For example the line, " I do not write of beauty: I have no woman."  He's saying how he doesn't no what beauty is because he is alone. He has no one to love. " I do not write of gentleness but the human rudeness I see." He doesn't believe humans are gentle beings. So maybe he has been hurt by someone before and doesn't trust people anymore.  Throughout the entire poem he is stating things he does not do, and why he chooses not to do them. Like, he doesn't ask for favors since he doesn't socialize with people. The last line of the first paragraph is a bit depressing. Even though he says he doesn't hang out with people, he admits he is lonely. To me that's sad, feeling lonely is one of the worst feelings in the world, at least to me it is. I have never seen a poem in this format before so it intrigued me.  I also usually go for the happy, joyful, quirky, types of poems. So it was a change for me to read something more dramatic and sorrowful. But I have to say that I really enjoyed, and that I think I will be reading more of these types of poems soon.