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Emotional Change In Two Poems

Decent Essays

Emotional Change (in Two Poems by Chen Chen) The two poems by Chen Chen, “Popular Street” and “Second Thoughts on a Winter Afternoon,” share a similar concept: the complexity of love between the author and his mother. The poems convey through language the changing the relationship with the mother, as the poet grew up; he lost stability with love from his mother. Both poems contain multiple uses of pronouns “I” and “you” as Chen converses with someone in the poem. The main contrast between these two poems is the tone; the author employs the same themes to convey his conflicted emotional meanings throughout the poem. “Popular Street” uses a playful and humorous voice while “Second Thoughts on a Winter Afternoon” carries a deep sadness through …show more content…

“Second Thoughts on a Winter Afternoon,” is comparing physical and emotional pain. In “Popular Street,” the mother’s love changes when the speaker became attracted to the same sex. Meanwhile, in “Second Thoughts on a Winter Afternoon” the context of the word changes it meaning from “illness” to “cool.” The author makes the contrast between physical illness and emotional sickness. In “Popular Street” the author states, “After my mother’s love became doubtful. After I told her, I liked a boy & she wished I had never been born.” (Line, 19-20) The author expresses his mother’s love has changed once she realized that he was attracted to the same gender. The author is hurt and trying to figure out how to deal with this change. Meanwhile in “Second Thoughts on a Winter Afternoon,” it speaks about how the concept of words changes its meaning in language. For example, the poet states, “your mother is sick & all I can think of is how sick’s also a word for cool, like ill.” (Lines 1-2) Chen speaks about how a change in a word’s meaning may reflect the changing emotions we experience. The main contrast in “Second Thoughts on a Winter Afternoon” is to show the emotional and physical sickness between the two people’s mothers. While in the “Poplar Street,” the poet is speaking to a stranger about the emotional changes of love from his mother; while he has become a stranger to his mother. The stranger is highlighting the …show more content…

“Popular Street,” uses a playful and humorous tone. In contrast with, “Second Thoughts on Winter Afternoon” which is full of depth and sad emotions. “Popular Street” entertains the stranger with a playful tone by saying “Oh. Sorry. Hello. Are you on your way to work, too?”(line, 1-2) The author’s tone is playful and humorous while conversing with the stranger. The second poem “Second Thoughts on a Winter Afternoon” has an opposite tone of “Popular Street.” The tone of “Second Thoughts on a Winter Afternoon” is expressing to his partner an emotional experience that he’s facing. In the poem, it states, “Mommy, though of course, this woman is the mom, mommy to you” (line, 9-10). Chen uses his partner to highlight how he is disconnected from his mother with his tone. He is conveying an emotional and a serious tone in the poems to express the same themes to the reader. By using the first-person perspective by the use of “I” and “you,” to converse with the person he’s talking to about his emotional experience. Chen mirrors the same theme in both of the poems but conveys the tone differently which has different aspects of his emotional conflict with his

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