Poem Analysis: Common Dust By Georgia Douglas Johnson

Have you ever felt like you were born to do something? Since I was born I felt like I was born to play baseball, but after that I would love to be a broadcaster. That is why I have chosen to analyze “The Broadcaster’s Poem” by Alden Nowlan. Analyzing a poem is not an easy thing to accomplish for me. As I very rarely analyze anything I read, but you should try everything once.

If an artist were to paint a picture depicting the poem “Oregon Winter” by Jeanne McGahey the colors that would predominate are gray and brown. Some of the visual details are the gray farmhouses with gray smoke coming from the chimneys. There would be soaked green hills in the background and brown “blotches of wet on the dusty road” leading up to the houses and barns. Visible from the windows of the barns are lofts piled high with wet yellow straws. The picture would also capture the sagging plumages of the wild geese flying in the sky next to the bloated gray clouds bursting with rain. Finally, there would be farmers conducting their chores, getting drenched in the slow, heavy rain of winter. It is dreary, and no one is in a rush.

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.

Dawe in his poem ‘Drifters’ presents the inevitable nature of change, particularly change that is unwanted. Moreover, Dawe manifests the diverse responses individuals have when encountering change in their lives and the transformative impact of change. These prominent themes are manipulated through the motif of travelling, flashbacks and symbolism.

Billie Jo Kelby is not a boy. She’s a girl; a wiry, thin, redheaded girl that looks more like her father than her mother. She lives on the Great Plains in 1935, during the great drought known as the Dust Bowl. She lives with her pregnant mother and her father, and life seems good, or as good as it will get in her dusty world.

Individuals have been brought to believe that the only way to end their griefs and sorrows is to end their lives. Though suicide has become a detriment and devastating issue, it has not been presumed to be an effortless or painless act. In society, people become their own threats as they tend to isolate themselves from others which often increases this devastating issue of unsubstantial pain and long-suffering. In the poem, Tuesday 9:00 am, by Denver Butson, individuals are unable to speak and move because of their own specific problems which are burdening them and their ability to help others. The poet is enforcing the idea that individuals need to open up their eyes and be aware of others relentless despair and their struggle to reach out.

The speaker then moves to a restaurant where he picks up a chicken noodle soup and gets his want across to the staff by simply pointing at it. The stanza ends with the line “I am adjusting well to the new way”(10), showing that according to the speaker the new law is working fine for him and he is able to live a normal life. However, with the entrance into the third stanza we begin to question whether the speaker naturally only acted this way towards the phone call and the staff in the restaurant, without using any words or he was actually saving them for his lover. The second reason is more likely to be true, due to his statement in the next verse “I call my long distance lover, proudly say I only used fifty-nine today. I saved the rest for you”(11/13). Here, the second character is introduced in the poem – the long distance lover. It becomes obvious that the speaker, who is most probably a man, is in a long distance relationship with a woman and the way communicate is via phone call. The speaker tells his lover proudly he has only used fifty-nine words today and has saved the rest for her. This shows the speaker’s devotion towards his lover because he has chosen to use most of his words on her.

On the other end of the spectrum, the black end, is the story of Shirlee’s father and his family history. This narrative, Haizlip tells with pride; she mentions how she would have very much liked to meet her Native American grandmother from years back and how she too would have loved to have a name like “White Cloud.” In this narrative there is no shame, no abandonment, and no sadness. This is a story of a family and it’s success despite their skin color and the changing times around them. Her father, as his father before him, had inspired her with confidence and pride in the way she was, dark or light, and from this end of the spectrum she learned to love the dark pigment in her skin. Haizlip tells various stories of black communities in which her father grew up and how her grandfather was respected by his fellow citizen. This is a completely different story than that of her mother. Instead of running away from their darkness, her father’s family reached for it, yearned

The poem “The Minefield” by Diane Thiel is about a man that struggles with memories of a war from many years ago. As an adult he still speaks to his family about the incident that happened with him and his friend when he was only fourteen years old. The author starts very relaxed and with a pleasant tone, but then the narrator pains an ugly picture of the father’s personality. The fathers tone shifts to darker, heavier language and angrier tone. The narrator first pictures a scene of two happy boys running from town to town.

The main observation readers could take from this poem is that the “lower” individual has to take care of and pick up after the white man. It is even hinted at that the poems the mother chant rival the alleged master of poetry’s own works.

Ben Jonson was said to be born June 11, 1572 in London, England. Jonson was educated at Westminster School by William Camden a classical scholar. Ben Jonson was a big man with a lot of courage. He lived with his mother, but his father; who died a month before his birth. His mother then married a bricklayer, Jonson then drop out of school to work for his stepfather trade. Ben Jonson really did not like the trade his stepfather did so he went off to the army. He was to poor to go to college so he fought in the was for the Dutch freedom from Spain.(434) Jonson married Annie Lewis on November 14, 1594, but there is not a lot know of their marriage. He later had a child who died in 1635 he called him his best piece of work created and he died

In the poem “Passed On” by Carole Satymurti, the speaker tells a story almost as in a novel of their mother and how she left them a box of index cards with advice on life when she died. The speaker’s gender seems to be female. In the poem, the poet presents the theme of growing up and becoming one’s own person through the maturation and acceptance process. She personifies the index cards themselves, comparing them to her mother. They also characterize the speaker and her mother and create a mood of sadness and longing, implying that perhaps the mother has been dead for some time, but the speaker has never truly accepted this.

“The Sky is Gray” by Ernest Gaines is a realistic example of a long epidemic has hovered over the African American community like an dark storm cloud just waiting to burst. Personally, this story called to me, like I was meant to read it. The mother in this short story reminds me of my own mother. Stepping into that masculine role to show strength and provide for her family. Then, teaching her son these harsh life lessons to ensure his survival in a society that is not welcoming to an African American man; act rationally, not emotionally.

Dust, written by Judith Wright, discusses the concepts of a destroyed, empty world and a mother reflecting on the days when the “Earth was kinder”. Through her poem she shows the audience her fears for the world and how the world will become barren and “sick” if the environment is not cared for. This is typical of Judith Wright, with environmental themes central to many of her poems. The emotive responses that are evoked while reading this poem are extremely strong. A great sadness is experienced as she describes the barren new word and contrasts it to the previous one. To convey the moral of this poem Wright has employed many different literary and poetic techniques. These range over three major categories, imagery, structure and

Some of the poems and essays I have read during this class were relatable to me. Being away from college, I have struggled with not being at home. I have become a different person when I am at school, but when I am home, I feel like I am my normal self again. Some of these authors of the poems and essays that I have read throughout this class has struggled with being somewhere where they don’t belong and that they are someone else when they are not home. Unlike the other poems and essays we have read throughout the course. I enjoyed reading the ones about “home” because I actually understood what they are going through and that I can relate. Some of these poems and essays include “Going Home” by Maurice Kenny, Postcard from Kashmir”, by Agha Shahid Ali, “Returning” by Elias Miguel Munoz and “Hometown” by Luis Cabalquinto. All of these poems deal with duality.