Comparing Merwin And Piercy's Essay

Poems and songs may have strength in literary terms, but have you ever wondered what makes them powerful? In this essay, there will be analyzed two poems “The Boy Died in my Alley” and “Daddy”, as well as the song “Firework” in which theme, metaphor, and repetition are the literary devices that make them powerful.

The poem’s stylistic value comes from its lack of a complete, overbearing structure. Whereas a strict meter would inhibit a poet from fully expressing the breath of their emotions, using the words they feel are best suited to their meaning, the loose, almost free-verse Anglo-Saxon structure allows for the poet

Atwood uses simple, but effective imagery to engage the senses of the reader, for example: ‘[…] that is a fish, blue and flat’ (l. 4). These images grow more elaborate and it becomes clear that she uses metaphors and simile to convey more intricate ideas. As the speaker confesses that there is more to the world than they let on, the use of enjambment, repetition and punctuation directs the focus on certain words and gives the poem certain acuteness and urgency as the pace increases: ‘Once you have learned these words | you will learn that there are more |words than you can ever learn.’ (l. 21-23).

Reading a story is like viewing a picture, the mind goes beyond imagining what occurs in the story. A poem is like the music and the picture combined, creating a movie for the audience. Authors create imagery in their work in order to allow readers to be able to conjure up their messages in their stories. After reading a poem one can quickly imagine the scene in their head, though the reader may have to reread the poem in order to understand the message from the author, each image playing a key role in tying the message together. In the short poem “Tired Sex” author Chana Bloch uses imagery to deliver her message about how passion ceases to exist between two people with the comparison of common day activities

Poetry has a role in society, not only to serve as part of the aesthetics or of the arts. It also gives us a view of what the society is in the context of when it was written and what the author is trying to express through words. The words as a tool in poetry may seem ordinary when used in ordinary circumstance. Yet, these words can hold more emotion and thought, however brief it was presented.

The use of free verse in the poem can be interpreted as the narrator’s internal misery that displays itself as amiability and composure on the

Poetry, by its formal definition, describes intense literary work that expresses feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm. In poems such as “The Light Comes Brighter”, “Gold Glade”, and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, poets used certain literary devices--such as imagery, personification, symbolism, and rhyme scheme--in order to develop an abstract but simultaneous concrete idea of their internal thoughts and emotions. In “Gold Glade”, Robert Penn Warren portrayed a vivid memory of a young boy’s adventurous spirit. The Gold Glade, originally depicted as a simple artifact within the wilderness, symbolized the dream and passion held dearly by the identifiable character within his boyhood. T.S Eliot 's “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” followed an insecure man as he reflected upon his most extensive regret: having little power and confidence when it came to making decisions and dating. T.S Eliot conspicuously introduced a complex interpretation of a simple concept and sentiment. In Theodore Roethke’s “The Light Comes Brighter”, a familiar sense of clarity showed the upcoming change in seasons. By shifting into a new season as the poem proceeded, Roethke helped convey his thoughts and stance on the influence of nature in human culture. His peculiar word choice brought forth a new and interesting perspective on the effect caused by the environment’s cycle. Through all four poems, the discussion of human emotion tested the apprehension and

One pictures a “plain house” (Line 4) when told through this poem. The last and final example is “warm caves” (Line 8), this triggers sight and touch by the temperature and location. These examples of imagery are portrayed through the tone of the author. The tone of the author is significant because through his tone the audience notices the imagery clearly. In partnership with imagery personification is showed in this poem, in line 18, the poem says “where your flames still bite my thigh” this is also a form of symbolism.

It lets your mind wander and see things as you would like to imagine them. He uses imagery that is very appealing to the sense mostly of sight. He uses phrases like “committed [caged] linnets”, “iron bars” and “stone walls” which all help you imagine a humdrum jail with ugly gray walls. He uses vivid imagery to describe his loved one, Althea, by saying “When I lie tangled in her hair, And fettered to her eye”. This shows the reader that her face, hair, and other features keep her appearance clear in his imagination.

The Language devices serve to describe the unique world into which the reader has entered. Prufrock's descriptions further allow the reader to see the world through his eyes and truly engage with the poem: “The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, / And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, / When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall” (56, 57, 58). Through his descriptive control of the universe the reader has entered, Prufrock can use elaborate descriptions of the external world to show his inner thoughts. In this fashion Prufrock shows the reader his underlying issues with anxiety and loneliness.

The use of imagery allows for the readers to engage more into the poem and also feel the message being passed on by the poet. "As under a green sea, I saw him drowning”. Another technique is also metaphors; the use of metaphors adds more interest and understanding of the message being conveyed. “Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod.”

In the late summer of my junior sixteenth year, I stumbled across a poem by Clementine Von Radics that I have yet to shake from my being. The title was For Nikki. It was only eight lines and roughly thirty words, but the way she said things really resonated with where I was at in my own biography. Seeing this poem made me go out and buy a paper back volume of one hundred very popular poems in American history. Although some were decent, I could not get the same feeling from the poem I had read earlier that week. Poems such as this often appeared in the “best” book: “There is a pleasure in poetic pains. Which only Poets know” (Wordsworth). After a hefty amount of searching the internet I was able to find Radics’ work. No literary work had held my attention

Poetry has radically evolved within the last century and a half. Due to writers such as Amy Lowell, poetry has changed from the structured and controlled writings of Emily Brontë’s R. Alcona to J. Brenzaida to Lowell’s free verse, imagery inducing works. The keyword to the shift in writing is the term ‘image’ which demands a variety of senses and uses an emotional complex to convey the mood of the poem to the reader. By analyzing Lowell’s works such as Opal and Decade, it can be concluded that strategic placement of ‘images’ ensures a deeper and more precise understanding can be gained from using imagery within poems. Also, her contribution to poetic expression has helped heighten the reader’s connection to the written subject by creating each

In addition to the tone, the meter of the poem consists of mostly of trochaic and dactylic feet. The meter adds rhythm and flow to this poem which creates a sense of completeness and importance of message. Poems that lack a steady and reliable pattern of accented and unaccented syllables often sound choppy or disconnected. Since the poem sticks to a specific meter, the overall meaning becomes much more concrete and believable. Additionally, the blank verse scheme fits with the straightforward language that Piercy uses to convey her message.