Lycidas Poem Analysis

The protagonist of the poem is Rosa Parks, a seamstress and an active member in the local NAACP, who refused to give up her seat for a white man. Parks was arrested, which led to a boycott against Montgomery bus system. As a result of more than one year of boycott, the segregation law was announced unconstitutional.

“’ But this is merely a negative definition of the value of education’” (23-24). Mark Halliday wrote “The Value of Education” from a first person standpoint. The introduction and the use of “I” demonstrates the poem is about the speaker. Likewise, the speaker uses imagery, self-recognition, and his own personal thoughts throughout the poem. He goes on throughout the poem stating external confrontations he is not doing because he is in the library receiving an education and reading books. With this in mind, the speaker goes on to convey images in your head to show a realization of things he could be doing if he were not in the library getting an education.

Richard Blanco is a Cuban- American poet who was given the oppurunity to write an inaugaration poem for Barack Obama's second swearing-in. He wrote a poem titled "One Today" that praised the good and unique things about the United States and also the everyday people who's daily routines help to make America the proud country that it is.

Lorna Dee Cervantes' poem, “Poema para los Californios Muertos” (“Poem for the Dead Californios”), is a commentary on what happened to the original inhabitants of California when California was still Mexico, and an address to the speaker's dead ancestors. Utilizing a unique dynamic, consistently alternating between Spanish and English, Cervantes accurately represents the fear, hatred, and humility experienced by the “Californios” through rhythm, arrangement, tone, and most importantly, through use of language.

Li-Young Lee is a poet who has written numerous amounts of work. He is a writer of Chinese heritage, but he does not classify himself as an Asian American poet. According to an article titled, “Li-Young Lee,” Li-Young Lee refuses to classify himself as an Asian American writer because he strives to be a “global poet.” This statement demonstrates that Li-Young Lee uses poetry as a means of addressing universal concerns. He writes about experiences or lessons that are personal to him; however, these are experiences and lessons that people all around the world can relate to. Li-Young Lee specifically writes about his childhood memories and family. A particular poem that reflects his personal life and poetic writing is, “The Gift.” In “The Gift,” the use of vivid imagery, free verse, and a distinct tone portrays Li-Young Lee’s poetic style.

of Helen. The speaker believes that her “cold feet” and “slenderest knees” could not move Greece as opposed to the other speaker. He harshly believes that the only way that she can be praised for her beauty is if she was “laid, white ash amid funereal cypresses.” (H.D., line 17)

The relationship between father and son changes over time, and molds along with the people in encapsulates. As in real life, the father and son who inhabit Li-Young Lee’s poem “A Story” experience sudden changes within their relationship as the time passes on. The son’s cries for a story that slowly change into adult conversations throughout the poem indicate that with maturity and age comes both understanding and hostility.

In the poem “Eating Poetry” the author writes weird behaviors that happen to “him.” One behavior the speaker does is barks and licks the librarians hand. On line fourteen the author writes, “When I get on my knees and lick her hand,” this is an example of the behaviors in the poem.

The poem “A Story” by Li young Lee tells of a young child asking his father for story. The boy simply wants a story that he has never heard, his father is bombarded with panic as he seems to think he is disappointing his son. Through analysis of structure, points of view and metaphors this seemingly simple story is transformed into a deep meaningful poem about a complex relationship between a father and son.

Take a minute to imagine “Men looking like they had been/attacked repeatedly by a succession /of wild animals,” “never/ ending blasted field of corpses,” and “throats half gone, /eyes bleeding, raw meat heaped/ in piles.” These are the vividly, grotesque images Edward Mayes describes to readers in his poem, “University of Iowa Hospital, 1976.” Before even reading the poem, the title gave me a preconceived idea of what the poem might be about. “University of Iowa Hospital, 1976” describes what an extreme version of what I expected the poem to be about. The images I

In the music video/song “Strange Fruit”, the phrase strange fruit doesn’t really refer to a fruit that is strange. It actually refers to people being lynched and hanging from trees. More specifically, the term strange fruit applies to the lynching of African Americans. This song was performed by Billie Holiday in 1939 at the Cafe Society in New York. The music video was actually a recorded performance from 1959. The song was written and performed because the purpose of was to raise awareness and fight against African American lynching because during that time, African Americans were being discriminated and abused. Billie Holiday in the music video/song “Strange Fruit” displays logos through context and imagery, pathos through her sorrowful tone and facial expressions, and lastly, ethos because she won many awards during her career in singing, and Strange Fruit is one of them.

Virgil’s The Aeneid is a Latin epic poem that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. The poem details the journey of Aeneas and his men after they are forced to flee burning Troy and as they wander the seas in search of land suitable to found a new Troy. Throughout the many books, the Trojans suffer through the Trojan War, the loss of their home, fierce storms, horrible monsters, and the wrath of the gods. A major theme of The Aeneid is human suffering as the characters in the poem experience the full front of despair and pain.

Poetry can be divided up into different forms, more easily expressing an author’s emotions and intent with their poetry. For analyzing purposes I chose the poems Self-Help by Michael Ryan, Ghazal by Agha Shahid Ali, Psalm 150 by Jericho Brown, and Emergency by Michael Dylan Welch.

The poem is in form of a villanelle, consisting of the rhyme scheme ABA throughout the poem. There are two major extended metaphors in the poem- the “day” which stands for a person’s lifespan and all their actions and memories; and the dark “night” which stands for afterlife or the void. These metaphors are also the starting rhymes for the poem (for line A and line B), and thus all the following lines rhyme with these metaphors. This shows the constant cycle of day and night thus life and death, emphasizing on the inevitability and continuity of this process. Also in the first stanza, the metaphor for death is expressed as “good night” (in line one), “close of day” (in line two) and “dying of the light” (line three), where all are placed at the end of their respective lines; thus again showing what lies for all at the time of their end.

Poetry is a reduced dialect that communicates complex emotions. To comprehend the numerous implications of a ballad, perusers must analyze its words and expressing from the points of view of beat, sound, pictures, clear importance, and suggested meaning. Perusers then need to sort out reactions to the verse into a consistent, point-by-point clarification. Poetry utilizes structures and traditions to propose differential translation to words, or to summon emotive reactions. Gadgets, for example, sound similarity, similar sounding word usage, likeness in sound and cadence are at times used to accomplish musical or incantatory impacts.