Poem Paper (2)

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Diablo Valley College *

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English

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Oct 30, 2023

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Ponce 1 Melina Ponce Professor Keri DuLaney-Greger English-123 February 12, 2023 Woman Empowerment Poems to some people are often perceived as boring, confusing, and not impactful. High School students are forced to read and write poetry which sometimes leads to having a negative view of them. That exact situation happened to me. I never understood poems and thought only smart people could like them. Little did I know that intelligence does not have that big of an impact when reading poems. When reading them you can perceive them however you want. I was missing out on beautiful and meaningful passages due to the fact that I thought I was reading them wrong. Lucille Clifton’s poem “homage to my hips” and Nikita Gill’s poem “Tell Your Daughters” are both powerful poems that focus on the need for body positivity and self-love. Despite both poems having a very similar theme they are indeed different to an extent. One speaks discreetly and deeply about how powerful and robust their hips are while the other speaks loud and is in charge of how we should love every part of a woman's body. Lucille Clifton’s poem “homage to my hips” is an empowering piece of art discussing Clifton's own personal views on her hips. Throughout the poem, Clifton expresses body positivity on bigger hips that are normally seen as flaws. The title “homage to my hips” basically explains the poem as a whole. Clifton is honoring her hips and how they are a part of her and that they shouldn't be shunned away and that she should be proud of them. Surprisingly, Clifton wrote a poem against the beauty standard of the world because in the 80s body positivity wasn't really a thing yet. While reading you can feel her strength and you can tell that she most

Ponce 2 definitely experienced body shame from the people around her. All the hate she got on her body was most likely driving her to write this poem. The way that Clifton is speaking throughout her poem gives the reader a view of how she is feeling. I am able to understand her frustration to then self-confidence. Clifton starts strong by stating “these hips are big hips” in line 1. Her emphasizing that her hips are big is implying that in the society that she lives in it is not celebrated to have bigger hips it is rather praised to be thin. Clinton continues in lines 3-5, “they need space to move around in, they don't fit into petty places”. Clinton is stating that her big hips don't fit into small places like the traditional body standard can and that big hips don’t deserve to be placed in “petty places” which is describing places of lesser importance. She is suggesting that her hips don't deserve to be shut down by society's thin standards. Clifton believes that women shouldn't be defined by their hips/bodies, they should then instead be celebrated no matter how they look. Clifton states in lines 11 and 12 that “these hips are mighty hips. These hips are magic hips” by her saying that it gives us a positive and empowering statement on big hips when we normally get negative and degrading comments on them. I think Clifton's goal with “homage to my hips” was to empower herself and other women and I believe she was successful. Towards the end of Clifton's poem, she speaks personally and is more vulnerable which lets us as the reader get an understanding of who she is as a real person not just an author. Clifton states in lines 5-6, and 8, “these hips are free hips…these hips have never been enslaved”. I believe that she added that because in the 80s and even today racism is an issue that seems never to go away. She affirms to herself and to the world that she won’t let society treat her the way they have treated black people in the past. Clifton then explains that her hips go wherever they

Ponce 3 want to go and do what they want to do. She won't let the impossible beauty standards and racism of the world stop her from being a proud and confident woman. Nikita Gill writes similarly in “Tell Your Daughters” about body positivity but it differs in her delivery. Gill is loud and direct with her delivery compared to Clifton's more discrete approach. In Gills's “Tell Your Daughters” she is speaking to all the mothers and fathers to tell their daughters that they are beautiful and worthy even if the impossible beauty standard tries to knock them down. Gill emphasizes that in line 3, “Tell them to be proud of every bit of themselves” and again in line 15, “Tell them never to listen when bodies are critiqued.”. Gill speaks more broadly with her theme of body positivity. It seems that Gill's major audience is younger girls or parents with younger girls because she is speaking on more topics that affect younger girls' development like stretch marks and freckles. I remember my first interaction with my stretch marks. I was at a waterpark with my friend in middle school and she told me what stretch marks were because I didn't know what it was. I remember her speaking about it like it was something you didn't want and should be scared to have. I remember her telling me to turn around to see if I had any and when I did I heard a gasp and that was when my relationship with my stretch marks started. I wish growing up I had someone telling me that those are normal and it is a part of growing so be proud of it. I never had that but hopefully with this poem younger girls going forward will. One of my favorite lines in “Tell your Daughters” are lines 4-6 where Gill states, “from their tiger stripes to the soft flesh of their thighs, whether there is a little of them or a lot, whether freckles cover their face or not,”. I think it's one of my favorites because it is something you don't hear very often. I think stretch marks are a touchy subject that people lean away from so it's nice to hear it in a positive light. It is the same way with freckles. I think that is an insecurity that

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