Poems: Poetry and Curious Tale

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.

Immediately the reader notices that the troubled and puzzled tone is created by the issue of ‘colour’ and ‘black skin’, directing the readers gaze to the theme of racism. The sense of pain and trouble is deepened due the simile in stanza one as on the one hand, the poet associates ‘black skin’ with ‘velvet’, expressing a sense of pride and innocence with the ‘black’ colour line, but at the same time the black skin is also the cause of trouble, it is the reason that the racial other is being discriminated against.

The poem suddenly becomes much darker in the last stanza and a Billy Collins explains how teachers, students or general readers of poetry ‘torture’ a poem by being what he believes is cruelly analytical. He says, “all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it”. Here, the poem is being personified yet again and this brings about an almost human connection between the reader and the poem. This use of personification is effective as it makes the

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

This is a tale about pride and revenge. Among the many ironies of the tale are three which prove quite striking. The first is obvious from the beginning lines:

Billy Collins, born and raised in Manhattan, New York, is one of America’s most successful poets. Known for very famous poems such as “The Art of Drowning” and “Introduction to Poetry,” Billy Collins has succeeded in the department of English Literature for much of his life. With a bachelors degree from the College of Holy Cross and a Masters and PHD from the University of California, Riverside, Billy Collins went on to become a college English professor at Lehman College in the Bronx. He is and for a long time has been a strong advocate for encouraging young people to get into poetry and even created the program “Poetry 180” where he made a collection of 180 poems for schools to read one poem every school day. Setting him apart from the average poet, Collins received the utmost honor from the Library of Congress when he was declared the U.S. poet Laureate in 2001, serving for two years. Following the September 11th terror attacks, Collins wrote and read a poem entitled “The Names” that was dedicated to the victims. Unlike many poets who write extremely emotional poems, drawing from their traumatic backgrounds, Collins keeps it simple and rights about relatable, average, middle class lifestyle topics; both of his poems Introduction to Poetry and Embrace are emblematic of that.

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.

“My Wicked Wicked Ways” is a simple poem if you read it quickly, but after reading every stanza and analyzing it you feel the complexity of it, every line of every stanza adds a different taste to the poem, completes the painting, and with the last stanza the poet puts its magical touches to it. I will start by identifying the subject of the poem, and then like every poem I will discuss the meter of the poem, with the rhyme schemes and any figurative language if the poet used them.

Ted Kooser, the thirteenth Poet Laureate of the United States and Pulitzer Prize winner, is known for his honest and accessible writing. Kooser’s poem “A Spiral Notebook” was published in 2004, in the book Good Poems for Hard Times, depicting a spiral notebook as something that represents more than its appearance. Through the use of imagery, diction, and structure, Ted Kooser reveals the reality of a spiral notebook to be a canvas of possibilities and goes deeper to portray the increasing complexities in life as we age.

using a ranged weapon or lure the swordsman away from the archer. At the end

Seamus Heaney published “Digging” and “Twice Shy” under the same collection of poems from “Death of a Naturalist” in 1966. The story behind “Digging” is about the internal conflict Heaney has with himself and the memories of his father working hard in the potato farm while Heaney works hard at digging into his poetry. “Twice Shy” centers on how a couple communicates their emotions felt from a date that carried meanings. The main theme for “Digging” is about the conflict Heaney has with his identity, while “Twice Shy” focuses on disillusionment between the couple. Heaney seems to struggle with realizing his own potential and qualities for something else other than what he and society thinks he should be. As for “Twice Shy” the couple has experienced the unpleasant romantic situations in the past which lead to hesitancy in a new relationship. The author built the theme of identity in “Digging” and for “Twice Shy” the newfound love of the couples through the use of imagery, rhyme, and mood.

The words that are paired together thought out the poem are composed of short sounds, such as “bring” and “wing” or “way” and “pray”. Since the rhymes occur at the end of each line they can be identified as masculine rhymes. Another way these words could be described as is hard and cold, for example the words “moor” are usually associated with a dreary landscape. In other instances where moors are involved in literature they are generally accompanied with chilly weather, hence its association with cold. Also “gore” is associated with horrific and harsh imagery that can make the reader uncomfortable and might send shivers up their spine. Whist not having a particularly sharp tone the words have a direct like manner that draws the reader’s

Fairy tales are full of tropes and stereotypes that exist from story to story, one of the main ones being the “happily ever after” ending. Most fairy tales, especially the traditional Perrault or Grimm versions, fall prey to this trope where the main goal is for the princess to find her prince, get married, and live happily ever after. Many critics, particularly feminist critics, find this trope to be problematic because of the extreme emphasis placed on marriage as women’s main, if not only, objective in life. Karen Rowe, for example, states in her essay “Feminism and Fairy Tales”, that “fairy tales perpetuate the patriarchal status quo by making female subordination seem a romantically desirable, indeed an inescapable fate” (342). In other words, Rowe relates the “romanticizations of marriage” portrayed in fairy tales with promotions of “passivity, dependency, and self-sacrifice” expected of women in their everyday lives (342). However, it can be dangerous to assume that every fairy tale conforms to the singular promotion of marriage as women’s only option. While early fairy tales such as “Cinderella” and “Sleeping Beauty” tend to glorify the romantic ideal of marriage, and in turn female subordination, contemporary tales and adaptations such as Brave and Frozen, are working to give women a more powerful position.