Fizzy Star Box By Loraine Schein

The tone of the poem changes as the poem progresses. The poem begins with energetic language like “full of heroic tales” and “by a mere swing to his shoulder”. The composer also uses hyperboles like “My father began as a god” and “lifted me to heaven”. The use of this positive language indicates to the responder that the composer is longing for those days – he is nostalgic. It also highlights the perspective of a typical child. The language used in the middle of the poem is highly critical of his father: “A foolish small old man”. This highlights the perspective of a typical teenager and signifies that they have generally conflicting views. The language used in the last section of the poem is more loving and emotional than the rest: “...revealing virtues such as honesty, generosity, integrity”. This draws attention to a mature adult’s perspective.

She explains that “to save our fish, we lifted them from our skeletoned river beds, / loosed them in our heavens, set them aster—” (10-11). Asteer is a pun, that is a flower and a star. To put flowers for fish and then fish become a star. The milky way is considered as “the pathway that souls follow on their way to the other world” by Northern American Indians (huffingtonpost), so she sees the future and past describing the milky way. She shows these tensions between the time flame and it is like a flow of the

The poem suddenly becomes much darker in the last stanza and a Billy Collins explains how teachers, students or general readers of poetry ‘torture’ a poem by being what he believes is cruelly analytical. He says, “all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it”. Here, the poem is being personified yet again and this brings about an almost human connection between the reader and the poem. This use of personification is effective as it makes the

The little child “she”who is in vague identity runs through this poem. From the poem “but I was talking

Into this atmosphere of spiritual paralysis the boy bears, with blind hopes and romantic dreams, his encounter with first love. In the face of ugly, drab reality-"amid the curses of laborers," "jostled by drunken men and bargaining women"-he carries his aunt's parcels as she shops in the market place, imagining that he bears, not parcels, but a "chalice through a throng of foes." The "noises converged in a single sensation of life" and in a blending of Romantic and Christian symbols he transforms in his mind a perfectly ordinary girl into an enchanted princess: untouchable, promising, saintly. Setting in this scene depicts the harsh, dirty reality of life which the boy blindly ignores. The contrast between the real and the boy's dreams is ironically drawn and clearly foreshadows the boy's inability to keep the dream, to remain blind.

Apart from that, the poem consists of a series of turns that reflect different parts of the speaker’s feelings and the experiences he had. The significance of these turns is made possible through the use of stanza breaks. For example, the first

Also, ‘the sun threw a bright dust-laden bar through one of the side windows’, this represents that the little hope in the bunk house only helps to further illuminate the darkness and harshness of society. In a setting, such as the ranch, where dreams are suppressed and suffocated, they take on a greater importance and significance to the mens lives, they rely on the dreams to get by.

4) In lines 21-22 and line 54, she refers to star-gazers and fire-eaters twice; where repetition helps reinforce the speaker’s purpose or create an

The speaker opens the poem by questioning, "What happens to a dream deferred?" (1). This single line instantly gives the reader an idea of what the poem is about. The first question produces curiosity in the reader--makes the reader want to find the answer to the question.

However, the poem has fluidity despite its apparent scarcity of rhyme. After examining the alteration of syllables in each line, a pattern is revealed in this poem concerning darkness. The first nine lines alternate between 8 and 6 syllables. These lines are concerned, as any narrative is, with exposition. These lines set up darkness as an internal conflict to come. The conflict intensifies in lines 10 and 11 as we are bombarded by an explosion of 8 syllables in each line. These lines present the conflict within one's own mind at its most desperate. After this climax, the syllables in the last nine lines resolve the conflict presented. In these lines, Dickinson presents us with an archetypal figure that is faced with a conflict: the “bravest” hero. These lines present the resolution in lines that alternate between 6 and 7 syllables. Just as the syllables decrease, the falling action presents us with a final insight. This insight discusses how darkness is an insurmountable entity that, like the hero, we must face to continue “straight” through “Life” (line 20).

The theme exhibits a lot of ignorance since it does not work in the interests of everybody thought, it brings a lot of meaning considering the author’s point of view. The tone bears a significant similarity to that of a teenager who is oblivious to reality. However, the mood is wondrous and happy following that the diction gives a great sense of positivity and success. The poem indicates that life seems to be a bit easy in the childhood provided that the in the childhood one has no responsibilities to worry about unlike in the old age where one has a lot of responsibilities to worry about. For example, in the sentence "cotton candy torches, sweet as furtive kisses" , it rises thoughts of huge cotton candy that tastes wonderful but furnishes as soon as a furtive kiss. The poet has used very descriptive words and numerous poetic devices to make the description in the poem very clear and effective. The tone only changes in the last line “Tossing a glance through the chain link at an improbable world.” In fact, it is the only instance where the author brings reality to light.

In the third stanza there is heavy personification of the objects in her room and the moon. The room ‘it seemed, had missed her’ (10), by bringing inanimate objects to life the author draws parallels to the child missing her parent silently, silent like the items in her room. The moon has also begun to become characterized and has been framed as inconsiderate, ‘she pretended an interest in the bookcase’. This metaphor conveys how the child feels: overlooked, as if items in her room are more fascinating.

The book starts with the poem “Standing Furthest,” which instantly transports the reader into the world of Mary Ruefle. Ruefle used colorful imagery to paint a picture of what she thinks. Every poem features some powerful imagery and interesting word play. For example, in “Standing Furthest,” she says:

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

20). In the fifth stanza, she fulfills every child’s dream of the parent’s constant attention by sleeping “in the cornucopia / of your left ear, out of the wind” (C. 21), safely surrounded by and encompassing his interest. This is, of course, undercut by the fact that it is not her father’s ear or attention at all, but an inanimate statue symbolizing frightening impermanence. The poem begins and ends with the recognition that what is lost is truly lost. She begins prophetically, “I shall never get you put together entirely”. Ending nestled in his ear, she seeks solace in the pattern of colored stars, knowing that she must find fulfillment in the world immediately around her, by “no longer….listen[ing] for the scrape of a keel on the blank stones of landing”(C. 21).