Literary Analysis Of The Boy Died In My Alley

The poem’s structure channeled bountiful information regard the complex emotions within the narrator. The poem started with the word “and” and followed the word “suddenly.” A time sequence is suggested here. It is believed that the speaker tells his

11. A poet can work its magic on the reader by “choice of images, music of the language, idea content, and cleverness of wordplay” (Foster 17).

To some people, poetry may not seem to be very applicable or entertaining. Poetry is a way to express one’s feelings and ideas and to inspire its readers. To understand poetry and to get a sense of what the poet is trying to convey, one must analyze the poem to see why and how it is compelling to the reader. In her poem “Eagle Poem,” Joy Harjo appealingly writes about the spiritual connection to the circle of life and prayer. The poem “The Street” by Octavio Paz is about life and the choices one makes. In this poem, there is a deeper meaning presented through the theme of isolation, identity, and the choices one makes in life. The last poem to be analyzed is “Remember” by Joy Harjo which accentuates the importance of nature and where

Style is the special way an author creates his or her work. Gabriela Mistral exploits an informal style in her poem “Ballad”. The poem discusses the poets feelings and is written in first person point of view validating its informality; “My heart’s blood.”-Line17 using ‘my’ and describing her heart confirm this. Diction contributes to style in an extensive way. Repetition is a form of diction that is heavily spread out through the poem. “Saw him pass by.”-Lines 2/6, “He goes loving.../...in bloom”-Lines1-2/11-12, and “He will go.../through eternity.”-Lines 19-20/23-24. The repetition emphasizes the authors style an diction. In this poem diction is displayed through negative connotation. Choosing to describe her emotional state as “,wretched,”-Line 5, instead of sad or unhappy, and by adding a

I feel the poem "Daddy" is a work of rage and powerlessness of her hate towards her father's death and then how she tried to control this rage by creating a new father in her husband. Her husband is seen in two metaphors, a Nazi and a vampire. The vampire "drank her blood", which shows his possessiveness over her. Which correlates once more to how her husband is a model of her father: they both confined her. The metaphor of Nazis brings an understanding of her personal pain and suppression.

Many people analyze a poem and desperately try to find the meaning of it. In “Introduction to Poetry,” Billy Collins uses personification, metaphors, and diction to demonstrate that poetry often loses some of its joy when it is over-analyzed for its meaning.

     Although what stands out on first reading "Daddy" is the Nazi imagery, it is interesting to note that the father is not called a Nazi in the first half of the poem.  In stanza one he is a " . . . black shoe / In which [she has] lived like a foot" (2-3) which is certainly a stifling image but not yet a clear reference to the father's evil nature.  Next he is "Marble heavy, a bag full of God" and a "Ghastly statue" (8-9), images which reveal the daughter's struggle to cope with his death but do not reflect any bad intent on the part of the father.  The next two images describe Otto Plath's death, which resulted from gangrene in his toe.  According to K.G. Srivastava, "The grey color of the toe [in line 9] refers to the gangrene that Otto Plath contracted" and "The image of ‘Frisco seal' [line 10] recalls the ‘amputation from the thigh of the gangrened foot and leg' and the consequent prosthesis" (127).  These references to the father's fatal injury continue to indicate the daughter's trauma, but they still do not paint the man as evil.  In fact, these images arouse sympathy for the speaker's father, far from the hate of the rest of the poem.

Unlike other forms of literature, poetry can be so complex that everyone who reads it may see something different. Two poets who are world renowned for their ability to transform reader’s perceptions with the mere use of words, are TS Eliot and Walt Whitman. “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock” by TS Eliot, tells the story of a man who is in love and contemplating confessing his emotions, but his debilitating fear of rejection stops him from going through with it. This poem skews the reader’s expectations of a love song and takes a critical perspective of love while showing all the damaging emotions that come with it. “Song of myself”, by Walt Whitman provokes a different emotion, one of joy and self-discovery. This poem focuses more on the soul and how it relates to the body. “Song of myself” and “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock” both explore the common theme of how the different perceptions of the soul and body can affect the way the speaker views themselves, others, and the world around them.

Published first during the decade of the 1990s "The Boy Died in My Alley" remains a significant poem of Gwendolyn Brooks as she moves from traditional forms of poetry such as sonnets, ballads to the most unrestrictive free verse and includes the sad rhythm of the blues. This poem offers an amazing juxtaposition of dramatic poetic forms, narrative, and lyric (Guth & Rico). The story is most often simple but with the last line, they transcend the restriction of place and cover universal plight. Most often the characters of the people are memorable only due to fact that they are trying to survive the trials and tribulations of daily living. For example, in the poem, “The Boy Died in My Alley”, the author narrates an incident when a black boy is murdered in her back alley and the policeman asks her whether she has heard the shot. As she was passionate about the bad experiences of black community in the United States, her poetry is mainly about their plight in the society (Guth & Rico). The main focus of the poem, "The Boy Died in My Alley" is to study and analyze the reasons behind the violence that is associated with African-American children who live on the street.

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.

Gwendolyn Brooks is one of the most celebrated poets and some of her poems have been at the center of academic discussion for many years. One of her most famous poems includes ‘The Boy Died on My Alley’, which will particularly form the center of discussion in this study. The study will focus primarily on the critical analysis that helps to define and to unify the central argument. In addition, the study will also examine some of the aspects that make this poem unique and worthwhile. Moreover, the study will critically analyze the techniques used by the author, the arguments that are central to the piece and how these techniques help to define the importance of the literature.

Imagery is a strong element that helps portray a lot of internal feelings for the audience to fathom with, thus creating an experience that the audience can enjoy. Imagery is the language represented by sense experience and a literary device that helps create a mental picture for the reader to understand what the writer is trying to say to the audience (Johnson, Arp 779). The following is the poem by Langston Hughes: “The calm,/Cool face of the river/Asked me for a kiss.” (Hughes 1-3) When examining the poem, “Suicide’s Note”, it is full of imagery with only three lines present. The

In conclusion, Taylor's poetical structures are customary in their fundamental purposeful anecdote, their unpredictability and progression are profoundly unique. His lines move to an unpleasant rhythm; the verbs are solid, and the symbolism incredible. The excessive different method of expression and the relationship of picture and thought planned by its strain to strike poetic flashes makes this poem a perfect example of metaphysical

The power of the poet is not only to convey an everyday scene into a literary portrait of words, but also to interweave this scene into an underlying theme. The only tool the poet has to wield is the word. Through a careful placement and selection of words, the poet can hopefully make his point clear, but not blatantly obvious. Common themes of poems are life, death, or the conflicting forces thereto. This theme could never possibly be overused because of the endless and limitless ways of portraying life or death through the use of different words.

Poets use many ways when they want to communicate something using poems. Poems are used as a means of passing ideas, information and expression of feelings. This has made the poets to use the natural things and images that people can relate with so that they can make these poems understandable. The most common forms of writing that are used by the poets are the figurative language for example imagery and metaphors. In addition, the poets use the natural landscape in their attempt to explore the philosophical questions. Therefore, this essay will explore the forms that have been used by the poets in writing poems using the natural landscape. The essay will be based on poems such as ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ by