Planting A Sequoia, written by Dana Gioia, included in her larger work, The Gods of Winter published in 1991. The work is written in first person point of view because the narrator. This poem’s central assertion is remembrance and honoring of the dead with the family and rebirth. The poem is about the a father that plants a sequoia tree in honor of his recently deceased infant son. Gioia uses imagery in the first few stanzas to emphasize the severity of the father and his families’ grief and despair. In these sections he also reveals the setting of the poem which is Sicily and the reason he chose a sequoia tree. The very first stanza of the Gioia’s poem sets the tone for the poem, which was melancholy, with the imagery the author uses. …show more content…
This is significant because it emphasizes the melancholy and mournfulness that he depicts with imagery in the first stanza. Later on in the second stanza, he author describes the tree the narrator would have planted as a “green sapling rising among the twisted apple boughs”. The author uses visual color imagery of the color green to describe the sapling in order to emphasize just how young the newborn was when he died. Later on in the poem, the narrator speaks of himself and his brothers kneeling in front of the newly plated tree. The fact that they are kneeling represents respect for the deceased. When the narrator mentions that the weather is cold it is a reference back to the first stanza when he says “of an old year coming to an end”. Later on in the third stanza the author writes “all that remains above earth of a first born son” which means that the deceased child has been buried. They also compare the child to the size of “a few stray atoms” to emphasize that he was an infant. All of these symbols and comparisons to are significant because they are tied to the central assertion of remembrance and honoring of the dead with the family and rebirth. Furthermore, the last two stanzas are more personal in the sense of how the narrator speaks. The word “we” is used many times in these last two stanzas, more than the first three. In all five of the stanzas, the word “we” was used as the authors way of
The poem begins with the word “We”, which is the only line in the poem that begins in this such manor, although the word “we” is repeated six more times throughout the poem. The “we” that I believe is represented at the beginning is the
The seasons in the poem also can be seen as symbols of time passing in her life. Saying that in the height of her life she was much in love and knew what love was she says this all with four words “summer sang in me.” And as her life is in decline her lovers left her, this can be told by using “winter” as a symbol because it is the season of death and decline from life and the birds left the tree in winter. The “birds” can be seen as a literal symbol of the lovers that have left her or flown away or it can have the deeper meaning that in the last stages of our life all of our memories leave us tittering to our selves.
It creates a mood that readers can understand. Williams does a wonderful job contrasting death and life; his use of “attiring” and “disattiring” basically narrates how trees lose their leaves, leaving them “clothless”, but then the branches are preparing for what’s to come--their rebirth in the coming season. The liquid moon makes me think that he’s trying to create irony; the moon is liquid, as if melted, even though it’s winter time and everything is supposed to be frozen. The irony is subtle, yet very impactful when you notice it. Perhaps the long branches represent the strength of the trees despite the harsh environment around them. The buds can be seen as children being prepared by their parents for what’s to come, possible teaching them what to do and what not to do so that they can survive the winter and bloom in the spring. Like letting a child go off to college after years of care so that they can become their own person. The “wise trees” have experience, an experience that they have to share with their “buds”. The wise stand sleeping in the cold to take their last breath and let their children take their places. This poem is very meaningful because Williams creates a very important similarity between the trees and humans. Readers can relate because most parents go through the stage of letting their children go and letting them continue what they
The last line in the poem “and since they were not the ones dead, turned to their own affairs” lacks the emotions the reader would expect a person to feel after a death of a close family member. But instead, it carries a neutral tone which implies that death doesn’t even matter anymore because it happened too often that the value of life became really low, these people are too poor so in order to survive, they must move on so that their lives can continue. A horrible sensory image was presented in the poem when the “saw leaped out at the boy’s hand” and is continued throughout the poem when “the boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh…the hand was gone already…and that ended it”, this shows emphasis to the numbness the child felt. The poem continues with the same cold tone without any expression of emotion or feelings included except for pain, which emphasizes the lack of sympathy given. Not only did the death of this child placed no effect on anyone in the society but he was also immediately forgotten as he has left nothing special enough behind for people to remember him, so “since they were not the one dead, turned to their affairs”. This proves that life still carries on the same way whether he is present or not, as he is insignificant and that his death
In stanza six, we see the end of visiting hour, and the persona’s loss of control as he is overran with emotion. The phrase, “black figure in her white cave” creates an image of an intruder in her sanctuary. The black and white contrast suggests he is a shadow of his former self and also that he is trying to detach himself. The phrase, “clumsily rises” gives connotations of his state as he is physically affected by his feeling of loss. Furthermore, “swimming waves of a bell” is a metaphor which has connotations of water. This is used to illustrate that he is drowning in the realisation that she is dying. Finally, “fruitless fruits” is an oxymoron used to reinforce that there is no hope or going back, for her.
In the first stanza the reader is introduced to the two characters in the poem. The reader is also made aware of the time of the year and day. The first stanza reveals a lot of information. It tells the reader who, when, and where. It also appeals to the sense of touch and sight when it describes the father's hands and also when he "puts his clothes on in the blueblack cold." One could almost feel the "cold" and see the "cracked hands."
President Benjamin Harrison started Sequoia National Park in 1890, on September 25. The park was established to protect the enormous sequoia trees from logging, making it the first national park specifically created to shelter any living organism. General Grant National Park formed a week after, expanding and widening Sequoia National Park. This was the second national park ever to be formed in the United States (U.S. Department of the Interior, 2015). The Sequoia and King Canyon National Park is one of natural beauty, and so much more. It has many different features that encompass all sorts of wildlife, terrain, rocks, and other characteristics of a true national park. It is known by many as the rival to Yosemite national park and has the
In the third stanza, a lot of imagery is used. The significant ones are present in the seventh and eleventh lines. In the first line, the poet writes, "A
Although this poem also is connected with nature, the theme is more universal in that it could be related to Armageddon, or the end of the world. Even though this theme may seem simple, it is really complex because we do not know how Frost could possibly
why he stopped, may be he doesn’t know himself. May be, he is comparing the beauty of nature to something, but on a symbolic level, the snow strongly reminds me that the poem is set in winter, and which is also widely represented as the image of death.
On this tour throughout the United States and Canada there will be a total of four breathtaking and amazing locations to see, all of these will be beautiful places formed and carved out by nature or flowing and frozen bodies of water of giant proportions, with a little touch of human engineering to make it safe for you and others to enjoy This is the second stop on this amazing tour; Sequoia National Park!
The main characters of the poem are the trees, and Rios develops their character throughout the poem then ties them back to the grander scheme of nature. Rios characterized the trees as “steadfast” (Rios 26). Using the word steadfast, meaning firm and unwavering, tells us that the trees have been in the forest a long time and are connected to other parts of nature. They are integrated into the forest. Details also convey a sense of harmony in the poem. The poet refers to the cycle of the seasons by saying, “The trees grew more leaves, but wind took them all” (Alberto 16), and this shows the connection between the trees and the wind. In the poem, figurative language is the device that creates the mood of harmony the most in the painting. To show the connection between the trees and the sky, Rios used the metaphor “Branches were lines on the paper of sky. (Rios 19)” These quotes give the poem makes them seem like they are a being. The union between the different elements of nature creates a harmonious
The reason for the speaker’s sudden surge of regret seems to be looming death, for he states in the very first line, “My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree toward heaven still” (1-2). This reference to heaven is the first evidence that the speaker thinks he is going to die. At this point in the poem the references to death or the end of life are rather peaceful, as exemplified by the statement. “But I am done with apple-picking now. Essence of winter sleep is on the night” (6-7). Though the words, “winter”, “sleep”, and “night” typically represent death, they do not necessarily invoke a
The trees itself stands wearing white referring to a celebration. He refers to woodland of Eastertide. He creates a simile between the tree as he refer to his life. In “Daffodils”, the poet begins great creativity. “I wandered lonely as a cloud” (Line1). A Simile comparing himself to a cloud, making him view nature. The comparison to the cloud is similar to floating freely in darkness actually at the same time. Imagery takes place when the poet states, “A host of golden