Analysis Of The Poem ' Native Guard '

W.E.B. Du Bois has contributed greatly to contemporary sociological thinking because he began a conversation of what it means to be “other” in this American Society. In his conversation of what it means to be other he constructed and included three major concepts that continue to resonate till this day. His concepts include “the color-line”, “the veil”, and the “double consciousness” (Appelrouth and Edles, 269). Together, these concepts not only described past experiences of blacks in American society (e.g., slavery) but also continue to remind us that the relation of whites and people of color remains complex. In Du Bois’s own words, “the Nation has not yet found peace from its sins” (273).

Starts with 'I love a sunburnt country ', which is the exact wording of the second stanza in the original poem by Dorothea Mackellar. This particular stanza (from the original) is the most oem by Oscar Krahnvohl like environmental issues, humanity issues, cultural issues and politicwell-known, and by Oscar starting with this particular line, he exposes the brilliance of the previous poem, but the next few lines start as a parody from the influence of the previous poem.

When songwriters begin to pen the lyrics of a song, I believe their ultimate goal is to transcend time in hopes of reaching listeners for generations to come. J.R. Cash, professionally known as Johnny Cash, wrote a song that did just that. “Ragged Old Flag” is a patriotic song that speaks to every generation. Written in 1974, “Ragged Old Flag” was meant to tell the story of our country. Johnny Cash recorded “Ragged Old Flag” live at the House of Cash. Cash wanted the song to be recorded live because it was raw, untouched, and unapologetically real. The basis of this analysis is to show how patriotism spans generations, but also why a song such as, “Ragged Old Flag” is an important part of patriotism in the United States of America.

Siegfried Sassoon's poem The Rear-Guard is the story of a soldier, whose facilities have been compromised, frantically trying to escape the tainted and filth of an tunnel in which a war is raging above him. The poem if filled with a very real sense of urgency and horror in this poem. This is no glorious image of war, of charging machine gun nests or pulling wounded comrades out of harm’s way heroically in the eyes of one’s countrymen, but an image of a different sort. One a soldier faces daily, alone and filled with trepidation. This poem is about the images soldiers face in their mind. It clearly comes across as autobiographical; no battle inspired rhymer could understand a scene that comes off as more terrifying as engagement itself.

The title for this selection of poems, “Old News”, reflects the theme of racism in this section of Miranda’s memoir. This title is ironic because the problems in these newspaper clips show “new” acts of discrimination against Native Americans. However, the violence depicted in these poems has been recurring for hundreds of years. Since the founding of the American colonies in the 1600s, Native Americans have had their land, families, and sense of safety stolen from them. These European settlers did not understand the culture and behaviors of Native Americans, and, as a

The title itself alludes to “The Unknown Soldier,” almost parodying it. According to Georgia Virtual School, an unknown soldier died in battle, however, the body is unrecognizable. It is also known that soldiers are tagged. The fact that the title is the way it is and the subtitle mimics a tag implies that the lives of common folk is so insignificant and uneventful that they might just as well be unknown since they are just another face in the vast crowd of people. This relays a metaphor in the eyes of the reader.

In Trethewey’s “Native Guard,” graves symbolize of the futility of mankind’s efforts to conceal its evils, and of failure to combat the racist system put in place by white America. For years, Trethewey’s mother fought to protect her daughter from the hatred and prejudice in America. Her protest against the hatred of America was snuffed out by abusive partners and the nascent racism of America. In the poem “Graveyard Blues,”she describes the atmosphere of the graveyard as blues-y and dreary. She “wander[s] now among names of the dead: My mother’s name, stone pillow for my head,” her mother’s name now only a marker of her lifetime of suffering. Not only a problem in Trethewey’s time, racism and inherent discrimination was an issue for even the African American heroes of the Civil War, the Native Guard receive no recognition from the historians of the fort or the Daughters of the Confederacy. In the poem “Elegy for the Native Guards, Trethewey states that there are “no names carved for the Native Guards— 2nd Regiment, Union men, black phalanx. What is monument to their legacy?” They receive no honorable grave. They receive the most barbaric of burial rites, doomed to have “fish dart among their bones.” The bodies of the native guard are cast out of sight into the ocean, neglected in an attempt to forget the evils committed against them. Their forgotten and neglected grave symbolizes the futility of fighting against the racism of America, as well as the futility in concealing

This very well-known poem ‘Sanctuary’ was written in the early ‘50s by Judith Wright. Judith was a prolific Australian poet, critic, and short-story writer. She was also an uncompromising environmentalist and social activist campaigning for Aboriginal land rights. She believed that the poet should be concerned with national and social problems. The poem ‘Sanctuary’ was written as a great expression of environmental concern from her. The poem begins with a shocker. Sanctuary, implicitly, is a place of habitation which is safe. However, the first lines of the first stanza, “The road beneath the giant original trees sweeps on and cannot wait” represents a contrast. Here the road is used metaphorically to symbolise today’s modern developments taking place at the cost of all round natural destruction. The poem then unfolds the gloomy mood of the poet in the description of dangerous driving in the night on the road through the Sanctuary to the city: “only the road ahead is true.” In the last line then she is simply sarcastic: “It knows where it is going: we go too.” In fact the road never knows where it is going, but we know where we are going! The poet subtly asks: do we know where we are going by destroying our own habitation, native forests, plants and animals?

“What I’m about to tell you, Corporal, cannot leave this room. Under no circumstances can you allow your code talker to fall into enemy hands. Your mission is to protect the code… at all cost.” In the movie, Windtalkers, this is how a commander wants his marine to treat the paired Navajo code talker. That is, if it’s necessary, his marine could kill the Navajo, just like abandoning one of his properties. Even in the mid 1900s, the Native Americans were still treated not as human beings, but rather, machines; therefore, it is not hard for us to imagine how even more frightening the Native Americans’ circumstances were in the early days when they were first colonized by the western settlers. In Deborah Miranda’s “Indian

1. Based in the sonnets on read upon, they have a kind of rhyme scheme; however in her poem Native Guard, Trethewey appeared to have lacked rhyme schemes much like what I read in the book The Making Of A Poem. One thing that did surprise me is how the end of one sonnet contained a line of words that would be used in the beginning of the next sonnet which could be her own form of rhyming. The reason for the difference in her form, I believe, is the way she starts out the lines differently but keeps in similar words which she tends to show the readers the importance of her sonnet which is what keeps readers concerned to read through the whole thing.

To me, this poem is an extended metaphor for life journeys.  Wilbur’s daughter is undergoing not only the experience of writing– along with its frustrations and “heavy cargo” – but is experiencing life with some difficulties along the way.

Native American families were frequently placed in little, ruined reservations, endorsed to give up their childhood to receive inadequate schooling, a constant threat of kidnapping, and even removing entire families off their land where they have called home for hundreds of years prior. Louise’s father and mother both worked at Indian boarding schools, giving the reader the sense that she really was passionate about her writing of this poem in more ways than one. She truly gives the underlying insight to the boarding schools and the treatment of her people’s way of life, which was a systematic and legal genocide

“Ancestral lines” by John Barker is a book about the anthropologist’s experience in the Uiaku village located in Papua New Guinea. In the first chapter, Barker tells his readers briefly about him and his education, his and his wife’s experience with the Maisin community, and talks in great detail about the Maisin and their culture in the Uiaku village.

“The Soldier” is a poem about a generic, yet ideal soldier, which is indicated by Rupert Brooke’s use of the word “The” instead of “A” when describing the soldier in the title. The usage of “I” and “me” in the poem suggests a first person point of view, which makes the poem more personal and realistic to the reader. This poem is a sonnet because the first stanza contains eight lines and the second stanza contains six. Throughout “The Soldier,” the repetition of “English” and “England” shows how important his homeland is to the soldier and his high level of patriotism. In line five, England is personified, and although England is not a living thing, the soldier sees his country as his creator and as a sort of mother figure. Brooke’s use of alliteration throughout the poem helps it flow; the use of caesura breaks up the lines. Perfect external rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter are used throughout the poem, which both give the poem flow and rhythm. The “dust” in lines four and five is a metaphor for the soldier’s life; England created him and he will become “dust concealed” when he dies and is buried. The first stanza of “The Soldier” uses various lines of imagery: “some corner of a foreign field… In that rich earth a richer dust concealed… flowers… Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.” These forms of imagery emphasize the soldier’s death and how his death will cleanse him of any wrongdoings he had done in his time on earth. The “rivers” and “suns” are personified as

In Trethewey’s “Native Guard,” graves symbolize the futility of mankind’s efforts to conceal its evils and of failure to combat the racist system put in place by white America. For years, Trethewey’s mother fought to protect her daughter from the hatred and prejudice in America. Her protest against the hatred of America was snuffed out by abusive partners and by the nascent racism of America. In the poem “Graveyard Blues,”she describes the atmosphere of the graveyard as blues-y and dreary. She “wander[s] now among the names of the dead: My mother’s name, stone pillow for my head;” her mother’s name now only a marker of her lifetime of suffering (Trethewey 8). Not only a problem in Trethewey’s time, racism and inherent discrimination were an issue for even the African American heroes of the Civil War, the Native Guard receive no recognition from the historians of the fort or the Daughters of the Confederacy. In the poem “Elegy for the Native Guards, Trethewey states that there are “no names carved for the Native Guards— 2nd Regiment, Union men, black phalanx. What is monument to their legacy?” (Trethewey 44) They receive no honorable grave. They receive the most barbaric of burial rites, doomed to have “fish dart among their bones.” (Trethewey 44) The bodies of the native guard are cast out of sight into the ocean, neglected in an attempt to forget the evils committed against them. Their forgotten and neglected grave symbolizes the futility of fighting against the racism of