Poem Thirty One Analysis

Frost further points out that the stretch of woods being viewed is very rural. This is made possible by the reference to the location between the woods and frozen lake. In closing the final sentence of the second stanza Frost reiterates the fact that this occurs on “the darkest evening of the year” stating the darkness of the mood.

In the poem, “35/10” by Sharon Olds, the speaker uses wistful and jealous tones to convey her feeling about her daughter’s coming of age. The speaker, a thirty-five year old woman, realizes that as the door to womanhood is opening for her ten year old daughter, it is starting to close for her. A wistful tone is used when the speaker calls herself, “the silver-haired servant” (4) behind her daughter, indicating that she wishes she was not the servant, but the served. Referring to herself as her daughter’s servant indicates a sense of self-awareness in the speaker. She senses her power is weakening and her daughter’s power is strengthening. It also shows wistfulness for her diminishing youth, and sadness for her advancing years. This

So in America, segregation could not be unnoticed due to the unavoidable display of items that must be used for different races. There were different water fountains, different schools, different restaurants, et cetera. Although, while it was promised by the Supreme Court to be equal, commonly white establishments were ‘gifted’ with privilege and more wealth than colored ones. But if African Americans wanted to enter the clearly better place, they couldn’t because the sign glared at them, reading, “white.” This should evoke a feeling of guilt from the clergymen, as they told King to wait for equal rights, when clearly African Americans are discontented with facing unjust laws that don’t allow them to receive the entitlement for equal establishments with white

Reflections Within is a non-traditional stanzaic poem made up of five stanzas containing thirty-four lines that do not form a specific metrical pattern. Rather it is supported by its thematic structure. Each of the five stanzas vary in the amount of lines that each contain. The first stanza is a sestet containing six lines. The same can be observed of the second stanza. The third stanza contains eight lines or an octave. Stanzas four and five are oddly in that their number of lines which are five and nine.

While racism and segregation were major issues of the time, Griffin also explores the poverty, living conditions, humiliation, and violence toward African-American culture. The inhuman experiences of the author, as well as personal insight and opinions, make this a read that is easy for the reader to connect with personally. Drawing on the reader’s beliefs and emotions, it becomes easy for one to put themselves in that situation, self-criticizing and asking themselves what they may have done if faced with the same scenario under those

As the Reconstruction hit the south, some white farmers were forced to adjust to new life as tenant farmers and sharecroppers (“Q&A”). As this social change occurred, white tenant farmers became the equals to recently freed black workers. While the end of the Civil War brought about new rights for blacks such as the right to be a citizen, the amendments did not end the plaguing racism in the south that manifested in the form of “black code laws” that socially restricted freedmen (“Reconstruction Era”). Faulkner represents this prevalent racism in Snopes’s choice of words when he describes how de Spain’s house is built on “nigger sweat,” which depicts belief that black people are only good for slave labor (Faulkner 512). Snopes echoes how the tenant farmers despised the evolving social structure and let the change affect them psychologically, causing them to resent blacks even more and by default also resent the rich whites that put them in that position.

Further along in “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”, the writer had developed a deeper knowledge of the pervasiveness nature of Jim Crow. It wouldn’t only affect him solely during his childhood in Arkansas, but also in his places of employment as well. Wright gives an example of the emasculating effects of Southern racism. Wright describes a moment where one of his fellow bellboys is found frolicking with a white prostitute and was mutilated for the dalliance, with the staff being warned that the victim was a “lucky bastard” since his life was spared (Wright 139). The possibility of his losing one’s manhood had to be a troubling prospect for the other bellboys, who could see this man as a no more than a cautionary tale warning them to not to act on their interracial carnal desires.

The narrator describes his grandparents, freed slaves after the Civil War, who follow the belief of separate but equal. They believed they had achieved equality with whites despite the overwhelming segregation they endured. The narrator’s grandfather while on his deathbed spoke bitterly about his father, comparing the lives of black Americans to warfare and that he was a traitor. He instructed the narrator’s father to undermine the whites and to inform his family to do the same. Now the narrator lives a humble life which in turn allows him to receive praise from the whites in his town. His grandfather’s words haunt him, for the old man deemed such humbleness to be treachery and to avoid it at all cost.

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.

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.

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed” declared by an influential leader Martin Luther King Jr. As a soldier againsts unfairness, King strongly states that people should fight for freedom. Driven by human nature, humans are always chasing freedom. In “A Century Later,” the Pakistan-born British poet Imtiaz Dharker uses the poetic devices of symbolism, diction, and allusion to explore how perseverance drives freedom.

Adrienne Rich was a highly acclaimed twentieth-century poet who railed against war and the injustices in the world, and also used imagery that spoke tenderly of love—feelings that she sensed were both highly individual for her, but also universal. “Twenty-One Love Poems” were written between 1974-1976 to her lover of the time, and they track the course of the relationship through the sweet beginning stages, the development of mature love, and all the way through to its dissolution due to her partner’s seeming inability to “come out” and admit to her homosexuality at a time in society when relationships between women were not endorsed or supported. The language in these poems is very rich and weaves both ugly city imagery and elegant metaphors and similes together, with the apparent intention of making the reader search inside to see if the images and ideas conveyed by the language can be applied to the reader’s own experience of living too. While these poems are highly individualistic and at times very personal, this impressive and moving body of poetic accomplishment also reflects themes to which all human beings can relate.

At the mere age of seventeen, Pablo Neruda wrote ’Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair’ and it has since become one of his most famous collection of poems. Once, in an interview, Neruda stated that he could not understand “why this book, a book of love-sadness, of love-pain, continues to be read by so many people, by so many young people” (Guibert, 2015). He also mentioned that “Perhaps this book represents the youthful posing of many enigmas; perhaps it represents the answers to those enigmas.” (Guibert, 2015). Neruda was one of the first poets to explore sexual imagery and eroticism in his work and become accepted for it. Many Latin-American poets had attempted the same, but failed to become popular with their critics. He merges his own experiences and memories with that of the picturesque Chilean scenery to present a beautifully poetic sense of love and sexual desire. The collection hosts quite a controversial opinion, however, amongst critics and readers alike, with the risqué themes running throughout the poems. Eroticism being one of the most evident and reoccurring themes.

As one passes through life many circumstances and situations, he experiences many feelings that affect his thoughts, leave its impact on his heart as well as develop his reactions towards those situations. Feelings are highly important since after life circumstances pass, they become the only memorable thing; that even the situation may be forgotten but the feeling it left behind can NEVER be forgotten. Through this point of view we will discuss many feelings experienced by many poets that inspired them to write their poems the way they wrote it. Poems are: Poem at Thirty-Nine by: “Alice Walker”, My Last Duchess by: “Robert Browning”, A Mother in a Refugee Camp by: “Chinua Achebe”, Apsalm of Life by: “Henry Wadsworth Longfellow”, The Broken Heart by: “John Donne”, The Sick Rose by: “William Blake”.

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.