Anecdote of the Jar

I think this poem is definitely up for interpretation. From what I've read about Wallace Stevens, he liked to his poems to be that way. He didn't like to give straightforward thoughts, but preferred to leave room for readers to think on their own.

After reading this many times it occurred to me that a jar does not belong on a hill or in the wilderness, whether it's in Tennessee or anywhere else. The poem says "It made the slovenly wilderness/ Surround that hill." I think this could be compared to industrialization and colonization and how fast putting one thing that is out of the ordinary (building, house, etc.) into a rural area can change that area. It makes the area become like that thing. Most likely, if you were to build a business in the middle of nowhere more people would start building next to you and the wilderness would become less and less: "And sprawled around it, no longer wild".  The poem also points out how much power man has over nature (wilderness). "It took dominion everywhere." Putting something man made in the middle of the wild gives the humans the upperhand. However, humans/or the man made thing ("jar") may have control but for now it will look out of place: "It did not give of bird or bush,/ Like nothing else in Tennessee."

Home Burial

     This was a very sad poem about death and failure to communicate. First of all, we know the couple lost their young child. The mother is still grieving and the father seems to have moved on in the mourning process. The mother can't seem to understand why the father does not feel the same way she does. She thinks he's being callous. Instead of crying with her he dug the child's grave. "If you had any feelings, you dug/ With your own hand--how could you?--his little grave"
     I think the wife is wrong to assume her husband is not grieving as well, I just think he has a different way of grieving than her...he put all his pain and sorrow into the physical work of digging the grave. The father wants very badly for his wife to stay with him and find comfort in him, but he feels she's being a little overdramatic. "I do think, though, you overdo it a little." He could definitely try harder too when it comes to empathizing with his wife.
     It's too bad neither person is willing to accept the other person's way of showing sadness and pain. This makes for another tragedy, now it's not just the death of their child, but also the falling apart of their marriage.
     I know that Frost lost children of his own so this poem probably has a lot of real meaning for him. I wonder if he experienced this type of conflict with his own wife..?