Poem Analysis : Not Waving But Drowning

Tim Winton’s short story, ‘The Water Was Dark and it Went Forever Down’, depicts a nameless, adolescent girl who is battling the voices inside her head along with the powerful punishments at the hands of her inebriated mother. The key concerns of life and death are portrayed through the girl’s viewpoint as she compares her life with her sad, depressed mother. Anonymous as she is, the girl constantly makes an attempt to escape the outbursts, that come as a result to her mother’s drinking, by submerging herself into the water. An extended metaphor is used when expressing the girl as a machine and her will to continue surviving in her sombre life.

Would you ever think an indigenous poem about nature would have any similarities with a short story that is set later on in the future, where everybody is dependent on technology? “The Song My Paddle Sings” is by an early 1900s indigenous poet, Pauline Johnson, and “The Pedestrian” is written by early 2000s writer, Ray Bradbury. The short story and the poem both establish a very determined, lonely,anxious and gloomy mood. “The Song My Paddle Sings” is an indigenous poem that exemplifies to stay determined in every journey in life. The poem is about a man who goes sailing but there is no wind, so then he has to take down the sail and start canoeing but then the water gets faster and he accepts that he has to change for nature. Consequently

For this essay, I am going to be discussing the short story “Swimming” found on the New Yorker, and written by T. Cooper. I have chosen this story for many reasons, and among those reasons is the personal sadness I felt when I first read the story, almost as if the universe was placing a certain theme in my life, that only the main character could possibly understand. I am talking about running, the god given instinct felt by all men, inherent in the nature of fear, and brought out in all who feel sadness in its full intensity. Though in my short life I can not compare the sadness I have felt with that of losing a child at my own hand, but if I had been placed in that situation, if fate had tempted my soul with such a sequence of events, I would like to think I could find the strength to endure and the courage to not abandon all I had previously known. Yet I am able to reconcile the themes of grief, the mode of recovery, and the longing to escape such a terrible tale. I think in this piece, as I will discuss in later parts, the author was able to put into words a transformation we rarely get to observe in closeness, the kind of transformation that turns a kind man into a “just man” the kind of death that turns this world from a beautiful and happy place into a world that is closing in on our main character, that is forcing him to surface temporarily and gasp for air, much like he does when he finds peace in the water, wading breath after air, after sea. I firmly believe that

The Swimmer by John Cheever was published in 1964. The short story show the reader the emptiness many experienced during the mid-century white flight. The Swimmer gives a view into the life of Ned Merrill, an affluent suburban man’s life. Cheever uses symbolism, imagery, and tone to convey the theme of narcissism and suburban emptiness during the 1960’s.

“Time has a wonderful way of showing us what really matters.” A.E. Housman grew up in a small town in Worcestershire, London. His childhood ended at the age of twelfth because his mother passed away. Then he went to this University where he fell into a dark love and made him depressed. He worked really hard and got a job as a professor at the University College in London. Although he does all of his teaching and helping scholars he is most known for his poetry. His poems display deep feelings and are emotionless. His poems usually affected the reader like a shiver down the spine or a punch in the stomach. I am going to be talking about three messages from the poem “To an Athlete Dying Young” by A.E. Housman.

In The Swimmer a short story by John Cheever a man named Neddy Merrill decides to swim across every pool in the county naming his route the Lucinda River after his wife. As he goes on this journey some of his neighbors are nice, some show pity, and others show distaste for him. Throughout the story Cheever gives subtle hints that Neddy is disoriented as he doesn’t remember key details of things that have happened to his friends in the area. At the end of the story a disoriented Neddy reaches his home to find it empty, with his family gone. Cheever uses this short story to critique the way of life in the upper class suburbs of America that contributed to the social demise of Neddy Merrill

Moving on, the poem “Forgetfulness” by Billy Collins and E.B. White’s essay “Once More to the Lake” both use important figurative devices to describe the theme of how

I tried to breath but my breath would not come and I felt myself rush bodily out of myself and out and out and all the time bodily in the wind.I went out swiftly, all of myself and I knew I was dead and that it had all been a mistake to think you just died. Then I floated, and instead of going on I felt myself slide back. I breathed and I was back. (Hemingway

In the first stanza of the poem, Swells, Ammons makes a connection between swell and memories. Swell is the vehicle and is use as a way to describe the substance of a particular memory. Memory plays a role as the tenor. The speaker believes there is a correlation in terms of the size of the “Swell in the ocean” with the importance or impact of the memory; as the swell increase in size, so will the memory significance. The stanza then goes on to create an image for readers with the words, “Information of actions summarized (surface peaks and dribbles.” One possible reason the lines are written in this way is because the words create an imagery of contours and functions of a human brain. Certain sections the human brain can retain information and condense data into its most useful aspects.

To practice machismo, also known as masculinity in a Dominican culture, males have to hide their flaws and act a certain way. If men express their un-masculine nature, they will be seen as expressing their weakness. In Drown written by Junot Díaz, contains many stories about Dominican Republic male struggles as an immigrant in America. One of the struggles Díaz expresses in his text is appearing masculine in society’s eyes. From the story “Drown”, the unnamed narrator expresses what it means to be masculine. “Boyfriend” is a story about another unnamed narrator observing his neighbor’s relationship, and comparing it to his own past. Yunior, the narrator of the story “Negocios”, explains the history of his father Papi, also known as Ramón. Society creates many definitions for what it means to be masculine, leading the narrator from “Drown”, the narrator from “Boyfriend”, and Ramón struggling to choose between doing what they want for themselves, or do what society wants to see.

Alliteration is prevalent in most of the poems in What the Living Do. Howe uses alliteration to bring attention to the line of poetry and her word choices are meant to evoke a response from the reader. For example, in the poem, “The Promise,” alliteration is used to further the themes of gender and loss, as the narrator states “Dad was drunk again and dangerous” (Howe 54). The alliteration of “dad,” “drunk,” and “dangerous” bring the reader’s attention to this line and places emphasis on the idea of the narrator and her brother sharing this moment (line 13). Utilizing this emphasis, the narrator is able to highlight the loss of her brother as no one else has those shared memories with the narrator. Through alliteration, the theme of loss is clearly expressed by talking about the brother who has passed and who she has shared memories with.

The two short stories “Black Swan Green” written by David Mitchell and “Letters To A Young Poet” by Rainer Maria Rilke both share a common central idea. In both stories, there is a mentee looking for advice from their mentors. The mentees have a passion for poetry and are aspiring poets. The mentors inform their mentees that someone who wants to be a poet should get their motivation from natural aspects. For one thing, It’s your natural beauty that makes you who you are as a person and a poet. Poetry is for yourself, your thoughts and ideas, not an audience.

"I once wrote a short story called 'The Best Blues Singer in the World' and it went like this: 'The streets that Balboa walked were his own private ocean, and Balboa was drowning.' End of story. That says it all. Nothing else to say. I've been rewriting that same story over and over again. All my plays are rewriting that same story. I'm not sure what it means, other than life is hard" (Calvert, n.d.)

In the story “A Drowning”, the man who fell in water does not give up the hope of surviving when the first swell comes toward him. Even the narrator thinks that he is died, “I thought, I won’t see him no more, but I was wrong” (A Drowning). This man does not yield to the sea and he swims for his life. Before the third swell arrives, the drowning still insists his hope, “…, now facing the land, his eyes fixed steadily on it”(A Drowning). His eyes shows his hope which is go back to the land. Even after two big swell, the man still tries to rise up in the terrible sea. He does not give up swimming for the last moment of his life. In the same way, Nancy’s mother also insists her hope. In the story, the red bean ice is a symbol of Nancy mother’s dream. She does not care about if she has enough things to eat but cared about the red bean ice. She tells to Nancy,

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.