I will present on this.

Throughout my research I had found that Edwin Arlington Robinson writes on many different aspects of life. At a young age, Robinson was faced with many tragic adventures, which was a direct reflection of his writing. His parents died and his thought to be successful brother turned out to be addicted to morphine. These turning points all happened after the family suffered bankruptcy. Recently graduating with a BA in psychology, I have been trained to believe that the roots of one’s past often lead to their actions in the future. It has been proven time and time again that experiencing a tragic event can have a major impact on a human’s life. Coming into Seton Hill, I had no idea what subject I wanted to pursue following up my desire to become a teacher. At SHU, it is required to fulfill the requirements of a major field of study; in my case psychology was my choice. Why I choose this field is beyond me, but the end results are highly beneficial to my career in education. As a teacher, my psychological background has
allowed me to understand individuals and how they think, react, and behave in certain situations. Psychology has prepped me with the knowledge to asses infants, adolescents, and adults with the basic principals of psychology. I have seen first hand how a tragic event from the past can greatly affect the life of an individual.

The assignment began with a poem titled Aaron Stark. Aaron Stark spoke of a creepy story about a slink old man, who wonders throughout the town, “A sound of alien pity, touched with tears, and then (and only then) did Aaron laugh.”…seems as though he should be cackling. There are not even words that can describe him. It seems as only the poem can paint a perfect picture of this mysterious man.
· Could this be a connection to Robinson’s past?
· What is mean by such a mysterious character as Aaron Stark?

In the selection The Mill, Robinson speaks of a man’s hard time working in a mill. His wife worries when he does not return from work. She goes in search of him as supposedly finds him hanged. The story never does tell us that the miller died and it could also lead us to believe that the wife kills herself after she finds him. Research believes that this may have been written when Robinson was grieving the death of his father. Shortly after the death of his father, life steadily became worse for the Robinson family. http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1317.html

· What do you think happened to the Miller? His Wife?
· Why would Robinson lead us to believe the miller was dead, but never tell us for sure?
After reading Mr. Flood’s Party, I could see how there was a connection between this poem and the name Ebenezer taken from the Old Testament(Ebscohost), however, besides the name I saw not other major connections. The poem seemed to speak of a drunken man rambling on about his war experiences. Eben personifies his beer jug into his old friend Roland. He speaks of Auld Lang syne, meaning good night and joy be with you all in his own drunken slur.
· Why was Mr. Flood connected to a “jug,” why not have him talk to a tree or to the mirror? Did the jug create the character?
· What did you think of the lines:
§ “Then , as a mother lays her sleeping child Down tenderly, fearing it may awake, he set the jug down slowly at his feet.”

Miniver Cheevy, A unique character in himself, was best described by a critic named Hyatt H. Waggoner: http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/robinson/miniver.htm

“Apart from his intellectual reasons, which I have already said enough about, there were more personal and emotional ones that are relevant to any discussion of Robinson's identification with Miniver Cheevy. Robinson was born the third son of a family whose hearts were so set on having a daughter this time that they had made no provisions for the name of an unwanted son. For more than six months the boy remained unnamed, until strangers at a summer resort, feeling that he ought to be granted an identity beyond that of simply "the baby," put slips of paper with male first names written on them into a hat and chose someone to draw one out. The man who drew out the slip with "Edwin" written on it happened to live in Arlington, Massachusetts, which seemed to provide the easiest choice for a second name; and so by an "accident of fate," we have a poet named Edwin Arlington Robinson. Robinson hated the name and thought of himself as a child of scorn--and he had reasons.”

Robinson has shown us time and time again that the occurring themes of his literature branch from tragedies of his past. It seemed to me that his writing was his own counseling sessions. It was his time to vent, and talk about his feelings in his own unique way.