I fully agree with Miss Childs that Mohammed should join our class more often.

I am really enjoying Faiz's The Rebel's Silhouette. In some ways it reminds me of Walt Whitman (who found death "lucky" as Faiz finds death a "triumph.") Like Katie, I see a progression in Faiz's poetry (Whitman's Leaves of Grass similarly progresses in response to his life experiences).

"City of Lights" carries a lot of the same themes we discussed in class: having hope (as a survival instinct) in times of certain death, or utmost desperation. When I first read the poem, I imagined it in a literal sense- a city with "each patch of green, from one shade to the next," suddenly "becoming pale," and hidden behind "mist." With this image, I could imagine the poet and Faiz's (same person?) despair over what has happened to his ("my") "city of many lights."

So the first stanza gives us this image of undeniable heartache, then in the second stanza (the transitional one), the man, the poet, is trying to figure out what he can do to "return to you, my city," so his heart can regain some control over his retreating hopes. With this stanza I imagine a solitary man standing in front of this great lifeless city, feeling completely helpless.

The third stanza is what brings in hope, and the power of the individual in the face of such a great darkness. As the "lovers" of the city "turn the wicks of their lamps high," I imagine a bunch of individual lights gradually appearing in the darkness (in a cheesy Pay It Forward kind of way). This provides hope, and shows the power of the individual (working with a bunch of other individuals) to make a difference (Whitman also explored this idea relentlessly in his poems, but under the idea of pure democracy).

But Faiz and the poet also suggest the importance of more aggressive action than just turning on a light with words like "attack" and the image of his heart "storming" the city. This reminds me of the idea in the McKay and Thomas poems that one should not die quietly and gently, but nobly and fighting back. Faiz doesn't want a quiet or soft revolution for his city of lights.