The poem “A Dog Sleeping On My Feet” by James Dickey, it starts with a man beginning to fall asleep in his chair with the dog sleeping on his feet, keeping them warm. It seems as though the dog has been here for a while, and the foot of the man is beginning to tingle. The poem continuously comes back to the mans foot, and how it feels under the dog. It seems as though the foot falls asleep the longer the dog lays there. I especially though this in the line “My legs of a dead thing, follow.” I was also thinking that the dog was probably dreaming, and portions of the poem referred to what the dog was thinking. Either that or possibly the man had fallen asleep and began to dream these things, but I felt as though the thoughts were the dogs not the man. The dog then seems to wake up and goes outside. The man gets out of his chair and then goes to bed. This part confused me though. Possibly the man was thinking of what the dog may have been dreaming about, as the man talks about the scent of the fox.
The end of the poem gets very confusing, and I couldn’t figure out an explanation for the line “Sleeping to grow back my legs.” The only thing I could think of was that by deciding to go to bed he no longer had the dog on his feet. Therefore his feet were able to wake up. This was the best explanation I could think of, but it seems far too simple for poetry.
Poetry always seems to be speaking on a different level than what I’m thinking. I really have no idea if any of this is what the Dickey was actually trying to portray, but I guess we’ll see how I did later on in class. I really have no idea what the poem is saying, but have at least analyzed some of the actions of it.
8 comments:
I agree with what you said that his foot kept falling more asleep the longer the dog layed there. A quote states,"Being his resting place, I do not even tense the muscles of a leg."
I agree with all of your ideas, starting with the title! I just do not get poetry like this. I had no idea what most of the poems were saying, and could only try to guess at the meaning of about every five or six lines. Hopefully things will get easier once we start to go through things in class on Wednesday. Maybe the more we read this type of poetry, the better we will become at interpreting it on our own.
I thought that we were getting to see parts of the dogs dream as well. The only part that I thought that maybe it was not the dogs dream after all was the other point you pointed out about the man talking about the scent of the fox. When I read this, I thought that maybe it was the man dreaming, but your guess is probably as good as mine.
When i read this poem i interpreted it in a similar way. i think that this poem is a simple one and it does relate to his legs falling asleep and regaining their feeling after the dog leaves. i thought it was intresting that you said he was thinking about what the dog was dreaming, i didnt really think of it at first, but now that i look at it that way it makes sense. I think i liked this poem more than the others just because it was less depressing, and less of a focus on death and dying.
Poetry is definatly confusing and I always seem to interprut it wrong or at least the teacher I'm wrong, but poetry is ment to be interpruted. I think the line you were confused about "sleeping to grow back my legs" means that he is going to go to bed so that he can regain the feeling (or control) of his legs again. Because I know when my feet fall asleep I lose control of them.
I also think that poetry is confusing, sometimes I have to read lines a few times before I can understand what it means. The poem, A Dog Sleeping On My Feet, was especially hard for me to read too. I thought it was about the mans deceased dog. It seemed like he was dreaming about the things his dog used to do, and it seemed that the man missed his dog sleeping at his feet.
I thought this poem was very confusing and that they are several ways that it could have been interpretated. I like your interpretation that the man was dreaming the dog's dreams though. The dreams were of chasing something and of running which is what dogs do. He mentioned that his legs had fallen asleep because of the dog laying on them. When your legs fall asleep you lose feeling and you don't have control just as the man did not have control of what he was dreaming because they were the dogs dreams.
I agree with you onthe fact that these poems are very confusing and that they are also hard to understand. I have to say that it is interesting what you said about the dog falling asleep on the man's leg and then the man's leg falling asleep and becoming tingly.
I agree my poem didnt make much sence either. Its funny because I was going to read this and it didnt seem to make sence. I think what made it cinfusing was the fact that you dont know if the man is dreaming or if the dog is dreaming.
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