Analysis Of A Poem By Natalie Diaz

Have you ever felt like you were born to do something? Since I was born I felt like I was born to play baseball, but after that I would love to be a broadcaster. That is why I have chosen to analyze “The Broadcaster’s Poem” by Alden Nowlan. Analyzing a poem is not an easy thing to accomplish for me. As I very rarely analyze anything I read, but you should try everything once.

Richard Blanco is a Cuban- American poet who was given the oppurunity to write an inaugaration poem for Barack Obama's second swearing-in. He wrote a poem titled "One Today" that praised the good and unique things about the United States and also the everyday people who's daily routines help to make America the proud country that it is.

The woman being described in Maxine’s poem is confident in her own skin, where Maxine says, “The woman I am in my dreams, is taller than I am, she sees the world as she walks” this suggests that the woman always has her head up high and takes in the world as she walks. The woman wears red “spike heels” and “that woman walks only when she feels like not running, not jogging” would suggest the woman is physically capable of both running and walking. The verse “they don’t hide under long skirts; her legs and feet are well” would elude that the woman in the poem isn’t afraid to show off her legs which would support the idea that she is physically able.

La Migra (pg. 700) is about two young kids (mostly immigrants) playing a game called “La Migra.” In La Migra there are two roles that can be played, the border patrol officer or Mexican maid. The poem is spilt into two main stanzas; each stanza gives you a different point of view. It allows you do play both roles of this game. The first stanza is focus on the role of the border patrol officer. In lines 4-7 of the poem tells you what the border patrol officer would have on the daily basis. This was a jeep, a badge and sunglasses. In the second stanza you play to Mexican maid/ woman. In this stanza you are powerless because you play the immigrant. It gives you a since of being caught in the act of a crime. In my opinion, I feel the theme of this

Though out this class I learned a lot, I never really read much poetry and did not realize how much meaning poems can have. I am glad that we read so many different types and styles of poems and books. It really helped me get a well rounded understanding of poetry. My favorite unit was the collection unit. The other poems we read taught me a lot about the other topics we touched on as well. Before this class I never really gave poetry much thought, this class opened up my eyes to how important poetry really is.

The fact that enjambment is used throughout the poem such as in the lines, “like a colour slide or press an ear against its hive” portrays a lack of structure and therefore emphasizes the initial enjoyment one feels when reading a poem before the chore of analyzing it begins. This is also emphasized through the fact that the poem is a free verse poem.

Giovanni brilliantly uses the literary devices of imagery, paralleled repetition and symbolism to depict a vivid journey of transformation, concluding with an exquisite moment of self-realization.

To practice machismo, also known as masculinity in a Dominican culture, males have to hide their flaws and act a certain way. If men express their un-masculine nature, they will be seen as expressing their weakness. In Drown written by Junot Díaz, contains many stories about Dominican Republic male struggles as an immigrant in America. One of the struggles Díaz expresses in his text is appearing masculine in society’s eyes. From the story “Drown”, the unnamed narrator expresses what it means to be masculine. “Boyfriend” is a story about another unnamed narrator observing his neighbor’s relationship, and comparing it to his own past. Yunior, the narrator of the story “Negocios”, explains the history of his father Papi, also known as Ramón. Society creates many definitions for what it means to be masculine, leading the narrator from “Drown”, the narrator from “Boyfriend”, and Ramón struggling to choose between doing what they want for themselves, or do what society wants to see.

The author’s main idea is interesting. He starts of with the first stanza very joyful, the he describes in he next stanza what really happened. It seemed that the father hardly gave any attention to the boy as a child. The theme is symbolic for the author in this poem because he also lived through his parents getting a divorce as a child. This poem is very sad, the boy had to teach himself how to ride on his own. The setting is in the middle of night in the street and picturing that with the little boy left there by his father is very depressing. Even though he eventually learned how to ride a bike, he had no help.

The poem “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid is a lengthy poem describing society and the social structure in the early 50’s from what it sounds. The short story “Girl,” deals with the experience of being young and female in a poor country. This poem describes a time when stereotypical gender roles where a huge part of society women had duties that only women could do such as clean, cook, wash clothing, watch the children and ect. And the men were head of the house hold and preserved as high and mighty, the untouchables by women and children. “This is how you iron your father 's khaki shirt so that it doesn 't have a crease; this is how you iron your father 's khaki pants so that they don 't have a crease;”(Kincaid) is an example of how the poem spells out how the women are supposed to cater to men, how to act in public settings and a variety of other things women were “meant to do” or as ordered by men.

That is all I remember for the next five or ten seconds. I woke up about fifteen feet from the grave. I could see every color of the rainbow. My radio was gone. I looked behind me. The radio was about ten or twelve feet away with the antenna sticking out of the water. I began to yell, “Did anybody get a fix?” (A fix was a flash from a mortar or rocket or whatever.) I could not hear myself yell. After about another twenty seconds or so, I began to hear the men in my squad yell, “I’ve been hit, Sgt. Leland. I’ve been hit.”

Place me on my car, pat me down, tell me to get out of everything, when’ backs against the wall

Ted Kooser, the thirteenth Poet Laureate of the United States and Pulitzer Prize winner, is known for his honest and accessible writing. Kooser’s poem “A Spiral Notebook” was published in 2004, in the book Good Poems for Hard Times, depicting a spiral notebook as something that represents more than its appearance. Through the use of imagery, diction, and structure, Ted Kooser reveals the reality of a spiral notebook to be a canvas of possibilities and goes deeper to portray the increasing complexities in life as we age.

I want you to stop and think about tone in day to day conversations. It mostly depends on the body language, volume of voice, and pitch of the person speaking. Written poems, on the other hand, develop their tone through imagery, language use, and form. To show this, I will be using the poem “Tonight I can write” by analyzing how Pablo Neruda works with distant imagery, nostalgic past tense, and repetitive form to develop a grief-filled tone. Through my analysis, I will be mentioning that the author generates loneliness in the persona. I expect the reader to agree that solitude is a state naturally feared and unwanted by humankind because of our undeniable biological drive to reproduce and survive, which requires the company of others. With that being said, I hope that we can assume loneliness is essentially connected to grief.

In the land of Novyd lived a bard named Spero, who always wore his heart on his sleeve. He traveled from court to court, charming the nobles with his songs and poems about love. In each court, Spero longed to meet the love of his life: he pursued any woman who caught his eye, offering them a piece of his heart in exchange for their affection.