Close Reading In Safiya Sinclair's Cannibal

In exploring this poem the tone of the opening line – “Abortions will not let you forget” – can be viewed as regretful and as offering a kind of warning. As we move through the poem the tone of line four, might be called literally imaginative, as she say; “The singers and workers that never handled the air”. While in lines 5-6 the tone seems at first brutally honest and realistic and then affectionate and realistic. As she continues to lines 7-10, as well as in many lines of this poem, the mother expresses herself as a person who is fully familiar with all the small, subtle realities of parenting. She even expresses her attitudes toward her abortions even more complex.

Sentences like “And how the lions in your eyes are all dying” (5) or “But the Egyptians used honey / To preserve their vital organs” (8-9) are perfect uses of metaphors in the sense that they characterize the situation and give the reader a vivid understanding. The ‘lions dying in the eyes of the beholder’ is a way of saying that all the courage, confidence and fire they had burning inside of them before, is now vanishing. It leaves one feeling empty and self-conscious knowing that whoever betrayed them, whether it be lover, a friend or a family member, had the audacity to do it in the first place. Another striking phrase in the poem was when Weslowski referred to the Egyptians using honey to save their most important organs. In a literal sense, the heart is one of, if not, the most vital organs we, as humans, have; it’s what keeps us alive. Speaking in a non-literal sense, the heart is something everyone wants to protect because no one enjoys getting their heart broken. Unfortunately if the occasion arises, one may go to certain lengths to shield what self-dignity they have left, or what pieces of their heart is still there. Half way through, Weslowski speaks about mohawks on skateboards (12), tattoos underwater (13), becoming the bad weather (14-16) or the music (17-19), or even becoming an empty coffee cup (21), he is pinpointing how certain people cope and the varying coping

The children are unnoticed by others and the mother is the only one that is protecting them. This poem shows the hard times that the mother must face because her children have died. However the mother is coping with them while still protecting her children after they have died, This is the mother's way of coping because she is not yet ready to let go of her children and still wants to care for them. This poem shows this through nature by portraying the mother as a bird who is protecting her nest. Also the poem uses nature by describing the harsh times as a winter wind that has caused harm to the mother and her children.

The first stanza depicts two main elements: metaphors and synecdoche’s. The first two lines of the poem set the stage for what this poem is about, “When my heart is not in my mouth, it’s in your hands” (line 1-2). This allows the reader to understand that this man’s heart lies with this woman and that she has complete control over it. This line also describes a synecdoche in which the woman is not actually holding a live organ in her hands as the reader would

The imagery in the poem, specifically natural imagery, helps use the reader’s senses to develop a vivid depiction of the speaker’s connection to nature and dissatisfaction with the surrounding reality. The speaker’s continued use of the “moon” reflects her attribution of feminine identity and idolistic character to the moon. As opposed to referencing herself and her personal insomnia, she uses the imagery of the moon “beyond sleep” to convey her internal struggles with insomnia and her reality. Throughout the poem, the speaker also refers to shining, reflective surfaces, such as “a body of water or a mirror”, to describe the inverted reality in which the speaker experiences reciprocated love. Reflective surfaces often invert the image that is projected into them, seemingly distorting the true nature and reality of the projected image. The speaker’s reference to this reflective imagery highlights her desire to escape the burden of a patriarchal society and assume an independent and free feminine identity. Specifically, the use of natural imagery from the references to the “moon” and “a body of water” convey the speaker’s desire to take refuge within the Earth or in the feminine identity of the Earth, Mother Earth. Feminine identities are often related and associated with aspects of nature due to the natural cycle of the menstrual period and the natural process of procreation. The speaker takes advantage of these connotations to suggest Earth and natural imagery as an escape from the man-made terrors of male dominated society. In the second stanza, the speaker uses extensive imagery to develop metaphors conveying the speaker’s experience of jealousy of the moon

Hogan intentionally set the poem up in a way that would force the reader to learn about the speaker’s family, and how the speaker displayed each family member. By the end of the poem, Hogan gave the reader relief by giving them a detailed story about the history of the speaker’s heritage. The way the Hogan, allowed the speaker to interpret the speaker’s Grandmother’s story was in a way that would permit the reader to connect all the traits from each family member to create a full analysis on the speaker’s issues with her

The appreciation of nature is illustrated through imagery ‘and now the country bursts open on the sea-across a calico beach unfurling’. The use of personification in the phrase ‘and the water sways’ is symbolic for life and nature, giving that water has human qualities. In contrast, ‘silver basin’ is a representation of a material creation and blends in with natural world. The poem is dominated by light and pure images of ‘sunlight rotating’ which emphasizes the emotional concept of this journey. The use of first person ‘I see from where I’m bent one of those bright crockery days that belong to so much I remember’ shapes the diverse range of imagery and mood within the poem. The poet appears to be emotional about his past considering his thoughts are stimulated by different landscapes through physical journey.

The early learning processes of the young are potrayed more adequately in the poem Father and Child where an older child, this time a girl at a rebellious age, experiments with the constraints of authority in an attempt to seek control for herself. This experimentation leads to an important discovery in her life; death is real and unclean. Just like The Glass Jar, the allusions to nature show the certainly of change and setting the tone for the events.

The poem is depicted from differing perspectives, third and first person, in order to exemplify the differences that exist between father and son. The third person point of view is utilized in the very beginning of the poem in order to help the flow and accentuate the differences in perspectives between the father and the son. As the poem begins, the speaker seems to be recalling and telling a story of how a

Although this section is the easiest to read, it sets up the action and requires the most "reading between the lines" to follow along with the quick and meaningful happenings. Millay begins her poem by describing, in first person, the

In this poem, readers visualize how deeply the poet feels towards the swamp and its connection to her life. The diction enhances the way the swamp is described such as, “wet thick cosmos, the center of everything” indicating the swamp

It felt, as I read as though I was a part of a well kept secret. These secrets, involving the frustration Rosa Parks felt, entitlement of George W. Bush or the hidden racism of Strom at the wedding. Each poem informed the reader of a truth and also evoked Finney’s view on these topics. I loved the special attention to background, characters we depthful and the descriptions of each were enticing. The audience was able to put themselves into whatever character was being described in the poem, allowing for more emotion to be resonate with each

her far from herself. In one line in the poem she brings us starkly into the world of a

Next, the speaker talks about the fish’s eyes, larger, shallower, and yellower than hers. The different pieces of fishing line caught in his jaw shows how many times he either escaped or was let go by the other fishers. Then the description of the rented boat, the parts of the boat that all turned into a rainbow.

Interactions between people are often evaluated in terms of lands gained, lives lost, and valor earned, but there is an arguably more powerful spoil of war that is rarely discussed: the right to write the story. The victorious party gets to tell the tale, and indubitably the defeated are portrayed extremely negatively if at all. Consider the many extant ancient Spanish texts compared to the lack of decipherable Mayan texts: as part of their victory over the Mayans, the Spanish burned the Yucatan almanacs. Cultural genocide of this sort is not rare by any means; imperialism leaves a trail of extinct and dying cultures in its wake. The cannibalistic metaphor in Montaigne’s “Of Cannibals” as well as the essay itself illustrate how history is shaped by dominant narratives, made even more evident in King’s discussion of attitudes towards Native Americans in The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America.