The Poem About the Cat

My favorite poem this year has been Chester by John Koethe. This poem always appealed to me, even when we first received it I was drawn to it, instead of initially feeling oppressed or stressed as many of the other poems did. The poem is not overly complex or complicated. The premise and setting of the poem is very relatable: a quiet morning at breakfast. "We live, I regret to say, in an age of surfaces," and Koethe's poem cuts through the mundane nature of existence and asks deeper questions about meaning and purpose (Wilde 47). Unfortunately, my grade on this particularly poetry paper was pretty bad. Firstly, I incorrectly identified the speaker as being second-person, and since that's what I talked about mainly, my grade consequently suffered. "O misery" (Shakespeare 3.3.171). However, bad grade aside I still greatly enjoy this poem, and have been induced to research other literature by Koethe. I enjoy his style of writing, without pretensions or overly complex metaphors. Koethe gets to the point and says what he want to in "Chester", without skipping around with a bunch of vague statements and unanswered questions. His poem deals with a prevailing question, which is whether our lives are significant, or "Does Anything I Do Matter?" (Currie 9). I also really like this poem because it features a cat, and for once in the history of my blog will a cat picture be appropriate.