For the unpack-a-poem assignment, I have chosen to analyze "I Cant' Get Started" written by Ira Gershwin. The reason I chose this particular poem has to do with the fact that none of the poems in my textbook spoke to me. We read a few poems in class that I liked, but I wanted something I hadn't already read before. I found this poem in a book that I got from my local library. I actually checked out most of the library's 20th century poetry selection and spent a great deal of time searching. One book that I checked out which I found immensely interesting was called "Poets of WW2". It is a collection of poems written by soldiers on the battlefields during WW2. Alot of the poems inside were unlike any I had read before. They were very dark and intense, some were even quite graphic. Although I found these poems interesting, I thought they were awfully dark and I wanted to analyze a happier poem. A great deal of the poems we read in class were dark and I was tired of downers. I needed something that would bring a smile to my face.
As soon as I read through "I Can't Get Started" I knew it was the right one. It was kind and lighthearted. Just the right type of story I was looking for. Now technically, "I Can't Get Started" is a song, but the lyrics are poetic (and it is in a book called "American Poetry") so I assumed it qualified as a poem. I find the fact that it is a song to be helpful when analyzing it, because I can listen to artists such as Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, and Billie Holiday sing the words and this will help me derive a different meaning to certain phrases and words. You get a different perspective on the poem when you get to hear it sung.
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