Chewing: A Poem Analysis

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.

Lorna Dee Cervantes' poem, “Poema para los Californios Muertos” (“Poem for the Dead Californios”), is a commentary on what happened to the original inhabitants of California when California was still Mexico, and an address to the speaker's dead ancestors. Utilizing a unique dynamic, consistently alternating between Spanish and English, Cervantes accurately represents the fear, hatred, and humility experienced by the “Californios” through rhythm, arrangement, tone, and most importantly, through use of language.

The poems “Oranges” by Gary Soto and Pamela Moore’s “First Kiss” share many common elements. I will examine comparable attributes of these poems such as the correlation between love and warmth or light and the poet’s ability to encourage the reader to re-experience events in their own lives. These poems also share many commonalities in their settings which are cold and wintery. The poems also offer a contrasting point of view in the different genders, ages and transitional phases the speakers are going through. The diction by the authors is also quite different. Perhaps “First Kiss” and “Oranges” can lend us insight into the multifaceted world of adolescent love.

In the poem “Eating Poetry” the author writes weird behaviors that happen to “him.” One behavior the speaker does is barks and licks the librarians hand. On line fourteen the author writes, “When I get on my knees and lick her hand,” this is an example of the behaviors in the poem.

On a ordinary day, and a ordinary date, Zac was dating a girl and they just went out to dinner. He really likes the girl and he didn’t want to get married at the time, but she did. So when she got really personal and asked if he want to get married. Zac just said ‘’No’’ and was saying how he wanted to travel to mexico and go fishing with a pretty girl like her. So they just talked about what they wanted and she realized they both wanted completely different thing. So she just broke up with Zac. He decided to head to mexico that night as soon as possible. He packed up all his things and headed to the coast of mexico. When he got there he went and bought a nice little house just on

In the poem “A Story” by Li-Young Lee, the topic of growing up is easily seen. With this in mind,the relationship between the father is constantly changing and evolving even if we do not personally see it. This growth is seen through the use of many literary elements.

It was like two hands intertwining together when the moon’s light peeked through the gargantuan sycamore trees. We are on the treacherous run to freedom, and I am eager to get there. Because of my bistered skin, I was shackled and cuffed, and forced to work in a field my whole life without my family. If all goes well tonight, I will be a free man who makes his own decisions instead of having everything forced upon me by an austere master. It seems like we had been running for days and my feet had never felt pain this agonizing until now. We slid through the woods like a snake slithering towards its prey until we began to hear voices. They echoed through the trees and would not stop. Ducking behind opaque bushes, we waited for the signal

In class we read 3 Cinderella stories and one poem. Ashenputtle is German, Yeh Shen is Chinese, The Algonquin is Native America, and the Interview is a poem. There are over 900 different Cinderella stories in every cultures. I am going to compare and contrast the ones we read in class.

The rhyme and pattern is AAA,BBB. It is supposed to be a romantic poem. It wants humans to be in touch with their souls and natural beauty. The poem wants you to appreciate how nice nature is.

The was a time in my life where I was trying to be a boxer but things

Page 9 I once was Awesome Oak. “What to do? What to do?” “I can’t run away; my legs are in the ground. My home in here and my friends are here.”

The Fish is a narrative monologue composed for 76 free-verse lines. The poem is constructed as one long stanza. The author is the speaker narrating this poem. She narrates a fishing experience. The author is out in a rented boat on a body of water, presumably a lake. She tries to describe the fish to the fullest, which appears to be the purpose of the poem, without saying either the specie or an approximate age. The narration gives the impression that the fish is slightly old. There are a number of reasons as to why that fish got caught by the author, including time of day, the weeds weighing it down, fish’s age, and the fact that it has been previously caught five times.

“Mark Strand is one of the most prominent figures in contemporary American poetry, and yet his poems are often considered some of the most elusive” (Strand 59). Throughout Mark Strand’s “Eating Poetry,” this is shown greatly by his use of surrealism. The surrealism, which is releasing the creativity of the unconscious mind, is one of Strand’s ways of writing. The speaker exhibits this by saying that a man is eating poetry, then that the man has eaten all of the poems, also that there are now dogs in the poem, and finally, the speaker shows how the man has somewhat of a special connection with the dogs that came out of nowhere. There are multiple places in which this poem takes place, which helps to add to the surrealism that exists throughout the entire length of the poem.

Tyrone was this 6 foot 220 lb. black man who alawys wore a skull cap no matter where he went. Man if you saw him you would think that he would insert steriods everyday and then goes and works out for about 48 hours straight. He reached down on the table to grab a remote, he slid a bright orange lighter. Once he got a hold of the tiny remot he switched on the television to 9 news KOA.

Some of the poems and essays I have read during this class were relatable to me. Being away from college, I have struggled with not being at home. I have become a different person when I am at school, but when I am home, I feel like I am my normal self again. Some of these authors of the poems and essays that I have read throughout this class has struggled with being somewhere where they don’t belong and that they are someone else when they are not home. Unlike the other poems and essays we have read throughout the course. I enjoyed reading the ones about “home” because I actually understood what they are going through and that I can relate. Some of these poems and essays include “Going Home” by Maurice Kenny, Postcard from Kashmir”, by Agha Shahid Ali, “Returning” by Elias Miguel Munoz and “Hometown” by Luis Cabalquinto. All of these poems deal with duality.