In “First Poem for You” (1994), a poem by Kim Addonizio (b. 1954), we see a person who is in love with, yet terrified by, the representation of the tattoos on his or her lover’s skin. There is not very much criticism to be found on “First Poem for You”; therefore, I believe my interpretation of the poem is critical to be expressed. It is unclear if the speaker of this poem is male or female, but I perceive the poem being told by a woman because most men I know do not memorize the details or express the thoughtfulness that is being articulated throughout this poem. “First Poem for You” is a very dense poem; therefore, it is best understood when interpreted sentence by sentence.
In the first sentence, I feel the speaker is more comfortable in
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She has studied his tattoos to understand the meaning of them, to understand the meaning of him. I view the third sentence as an interpretation of the speaker and the man making love, and after they make love the speaker enjoys expressing her love even further to him by kissing the permanent markings that represent the man, himself. To me, the speaker is telling us in the fourth sentence that she adores the tattoos so much because no matter what happens (good of bad) between her and her lover, the tattoos will forever be there until “seared to ashes” (11). In the next line the speaker tells us, “Such permanence is terrifying” (13), because she knows the tattoos will always be with him; however, he may lose his love for her because he cannot promise to be permanently connected to her as he can with his tattoos. Therefore, she “touch[es] them in the dark” (14) so he will never see her fears when she is comparing his tattoos to their relationship, but she touches them
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“trying” (14) to make their relationship just as permanent as the tattoos. This is why
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The poem only has one stanza and there is no pattern in the number of syllables within the lines. When first reading the poem, a regular rhyme scheme is not noticed. The poem seems to be free verse, but after a close reading the reader will notice a pattern of ABAB, CDCD, and so on in this pattern, rhyming every other line. The poem continues in this pattern until the last two lines of the poem, which the rhyme is GG. Also, the lines in the poem are not complete thoughts alone; the reader must read the poem as sentences rather than line by line in order for the poem to sound correct. Addonizio applies this literary way of writing, called enjambment, throughout the entire poem to exclaim the deeper meaning that we must search to find.
I believe the structure of this poem is very significant to the interpretation of the poem. The way the poem reads as sentences but there is a hidden rhyme scheme shows that the poem comes across as plain and simply but contains sweet poetry within. This symbolizes that the relationship between the speaker and the tattooed man is
when she picks him up from the police. How does this quote show us how she
She judged him as such after seeing the way he dressed and the tattoo he had, calling it a "prison tattoo" and requests for her lock to be changed again with the hope of it being someone who looked less intimidating to
Throughout the piece people approach Jamison inquiring about the tattoo and each time giving a response that she doesn’t want. Whenever she explains the translation of the tattoo, the inquirer immediately questions the motives behind it and gets offended by her claim to understand humanity and understand everything that is wrong in the world (Jamison 459). Except, they don’t know what Jamison has been through and don’t understand the personal meaning it holds. Although it wasn’t her initial intention, Jamison learns to accept the attention she receives from it. She explains that the purpose of her tattoo is to attract attention, be aspirational, and cause admiration. But, she also claims that it also serves the purpose of the opposite of all of those things (Jamison 460). Jamison tells this story to demonstrate the significance and symbolism of a tattoo and how a simple phrase can mean so much more about a person’s identity and how it represents people.
In this poem there are 6 stanza and there isn’t a set pattern but the 2nd and 4th stanza is the same. This poem also has a rhyme scheme in the 5th stanza. The rhyme scheme is “Aabbccde” for example in stanza 5 in line 3 and 4 the words “lookin and cookin”. This poem repeats the words “Lives, Paradise, See and Me”.
stories. Not always she was willing to tell one of them, but, fortunately, this was not one of those nights. She asked everyone to come closer and showed them one of her tattoos, on a spot on her left shoulder, usually hidden by her long black hair.
The poem also uses end rhyme to add a certain rhythm to the poem as a whole. And the scheme he employs: aabbc, aabd, aabbad. End rhyme, in this poem, serves to effectively pull the reader through to the end of the poem. By pairing it with lines restricted to eight syllables. The narrator creates an almost nursery-rhyme like rhythm. In his third stanza however, his last line, cutting short of eight syllables, stands with an emphatic four syllables. Again, in the last stanza, he utilizes the same technique for the last line of the poem. The narrator’s awareness of rhyme and syllable structure provides the perfect bone structure for his poem’s rhythm.
the first few lines, there seems to be similar word patterns. Not every poem needs rhyme as
She also presents a slight rhythm to the reading that allows for smooth reading. In keeping with her open form, there is no set scheme to the rhyme pattern. However, there is a single ending sound constantly repeated without a set pattern throughout the work. She also connects pairs of lines at random just for the sake of making connections to make that particular stanza flow. At the same time, she chose blatantly not to rhyme in certain parts to catch the reader’s attention.
The fourth line uses two verbs, which have internal rhyme to make the line flow
In other words, Dolgoff chose to get her tattoos to remember something important to her. Jane’s reason was rather shallow, immature, and a typical teen trend, while Dolgoff had a deep experience that she wanted to remember and her tattoo represents that part of her life. My experience with my tattoos makes it easy for me to relate to both Janes and Dolgoff and their tattoos. Much like Janes, when I was a teen I chose to get a tattoo on a whim, my boyfriend’s initials. I thought that I had considered the decision to get this tattoo over thoroughly. I even got a small tattoo in an easily hidden place on my body, and still no bells and whistles went off telling me to maybe reconsider. I went through with it and, when the relationship ended, the tattoo stayed as a constant reminder. It worked out in the end. Getting a smaller tat was a good idea because it was easily covered by another tattoo which held a lot more meaning for me.
Because the poem is long, it won’t be quoted extensively here, but it is attached at the end of the paper for ease of reference. Instead, the paper will analyze the poetic elements in the work, stanza by stanza. First, because the poem is being read on-line, it’s not possible to say for certain that each stanza is a particular number of lines long. Each of several versions looks different on the screen; that is, there is no pattern to the number of lines in each stanza. However, the stanzas are more like paragraphs in a letter than
Along with the irregularities in meter, neither poem has a regular line length or rhyming pattern. Dickinson’s poem contains alternating tetrameters and trimeters, with the exception of the first line, which contains 7 syllables. The poem contains some irregular rhyme; ‘heard’ in line 5 rhymes with ‘bird’ in line 7, and ‘Sea’ in line 10 rhymes with ‘Me’ in line 12. Whitman’s poem contains even more irregular line lengths. The first 4 lines of each stanza vary from 12 to 15 syllables, but the last 4 lines of each stanza vary from 5 to 8 syllables. Unlike in Dickinson’s poem, the rhyming scheme carries throughout the whole poem, although the AABBCDED rhyme pattern contains a few cases of near rhyme.
There are multiple reasons for individuals to tattoo their bodies and the reasons are usually individualistic and subjective. The experience of being tattooed is intricately bound up with one’s character,
The poem is written in free verse, offers no type of rhyme scheme, and in one long stanza. This contributes to
Free verse is not just prose written with irregular line endings. Free verse is poetry without regular patterns of rhyme, rhythm or meter. Note: free verse has rhythm and meter. The pattern, however, is irregular. Rhythm is often created through the use of other poetic devices, including repetition, alliteration, and other sound devices. Although it is "free" of metrical restrictions, it is still patterned and unified by the conventional poetic devices of repetition, assonance, and alliteration. The article "the", ordinarily disregarded, begins seven of the eleven lines and establishes a pattern that is seen on the page and heard when the poem is given voice. Alliteration lends ear-pleasing melody in