I am not very good when it comes to poems. i chose this poem cause it seemed to be the easiest to read. I originally tried reading "walking on water" but from the very beginning I had no idea what was going on
The heaven of Animals seemed very peaceful when reading it. Im not sure if there is suppose to be a secret messege behind it but it could be assumed that the animals are slaves. Once they die they go to a peaceful place where no one can control them.
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Yeah, I decided to do my blog on "Walking on Water," and I agree that it was crazy. I have no idea what went on in it, but then again I have no idea what Dickey was talking about in any of these poems.
I agree that this poem was representing something that maybe will end peaceful. I got this Idea after reading Shannon's blog, but I now think that it is talking about African Americans. Maybe Dickey is implying that in death things will be peaceful, even for them. But that is just a guess, and I honestly have no idea.
I think it is very interesting to think of the animals in this poem as representing people. At first when I read what you wrote, I looked at the poem from the perspective of the first description in the poem being about African Americans. When Dickey writes, “Having no souls, they have come, / Anyway, beyond their knowing,” I thought that he was trying to express an antiquated notion where African Americans are viewed as not equal to whites and possibly without souls since they are subhuman. However, if African Americans are the ones described first, then they are the hunters, and who would the prey be? So possibly the whites are the ones without souls, and perhaps Dickey is criticizing white-imposed segregation or whites’ prejudice. Then maybe the African Americans are the prey, indicative of their role in life during times of segregation and lynchings, but in Heaven they at least are “without pain” when they are attacked by the hunting animals or whites.
I also did my blog on The Heaven of Animals, and I had to read it a few times before I understood the meaning of it. I also thought it was very peaceful, which is why I liked it so much. It seemed to be a place where deceased animals went, an animal heaven. In animal heaven the animals were free in their natural environments with the beauty of uninterrupted grass, trees, and flowers.
I read this poem multiple times and still don’t have a very good idea of what Dickey seems to be referring to. In the poem I saw the line “Their reward: to walk” as something that probably has deep meaning to it. I thought of it as them being allowed to walk to heaven in reward for their compliance to others that may be controlling of them. When I saw “them” I don’t really know who I am referring to. It may be animals as the title states, but I feel as though it is more likely that the reference is to slaves. Possibly the slaves were looking at their future death as a safe haven, and that they are living day to day in order to become the person they have to be in order to make their future journey to heaven.
I agree with you when you say reading poems is hard and it's hard to tell where Dickey was going with these poems. Walking on Water was kind of crazy. I couldn't really understand it. I do think though that i agree with the rest of you and say that this poem does end peacefully and it is talking about African Americans i think. But i really don't have that good of an idea of what is going on.
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