Poetry Analysis of Limbo, Blessing and Half Caste
I have chosen four different poems of which come from varying cultural backgrounds and have a moral.
I will now explain how the writers present their ideas and give the readers an insight into different cultures.
Limbo is a poem, which shows us the feelings of slaves on slave ships written by Edward Kamau. This poem tells the story of slavery in a rhyming, rhythmic dance. It is ambitious and complex. There are two narratives running in parallel, which are, the actions of the dance, andthe history of the people, which is being enacted.
The poem shows a lot of repetition of phrases such as 'Limbo Limbo like me, Limbo Limbo like me'. This
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From my own knowledge I know that a specific Christianity belief is that the word Limbo means a place between heaven and hell. This is where souls go and this is a very unpleasant place, which is difficult to escape, so the writer may be referring Limbo to be the unpleasant place between heaven and hell and not just a dance.
John Agard: Half-Caste
The poem half-caste develops a simple idea of the phrase Half Caste and gives the ironic suggestion of things only being "half" present.
The writer opens the poem with a joke like half-caste is only like half made and the speaker stands on one leg as if the other is not there.
Agard ridicules the term by showing how the greatest artists mix things - Picasso mixes the colours, and Tchaikovsky use the black and white keys in his piano symphonies, yet to call their art "half-caste" seems silly.
The writer playfully points out how England's weather is always a mix of light and shadow - leading to a very weak pun on "half-caste" and "overcast" (clouded over). The joke about one leg is recalled later in the poem, this time by suggesting that the "half-caste" uses only half of ear and eye, and offers half a hand to shake, leading to the absurdities of dreaming half a dream and
The poem I have deconstructed is, “How to be a Real Indian” by Kenzie Allen. “How to be a Real Indian” consists of two stanzas. The poem is in a first person point of view. This poem was deconstructed in order to gain a greater interpretation of how and why it was written. To interpret what more the speaker was trying to convey through their writing.
The loss of Aboriginal ethnicity is also highlighted when the land asks “Where are the laws and legends I gave?” This dates back to the Aboriginal culture, as their spirituality is inextricably linked to the land. They believe everything on the vast landscape has meaning and purpose. As long as they look after the land, the land will thereby return the favour. However, through time, Aboriginals have begun shifting away from their original beliefs as their world collides with the Western world. Different meanings could be made out of this; such as the more Aboriginals walk away from their culture, the less inclined the land will be to look after them, thus breaking the chain of their spirituality and beliefs. Caesuras such as full stops and question marks are used are pauses for a moment of reflection. Through the reader’s understanding of the poem’s structure, they are able to not only understand how the poem is to be read but also get the feel and emotions coming across from the poet.
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.
Getting old happens to everyone, it’s part of life. What we don’t realize or even think about is the way we treat these people. Some old people are impaired, or have injuries that prevent them from doing the things that we do. In several stories/folktales/poems, they have a universal theme of treating others, specifically elders, fairly, especially if they are impaired. Two very different poems/folk tales share this same theme, but have other different elements of the story. “The Old Grandfather and His Little Grandson” (folk tale) and “Abuelito Who” (poem) are the stories that will have their differences compared.
Death is a topic that unites all of humanity. While it can be uncomfortable to think about, confronting death in unavoidable. “Dying” addresses that discomfort and universal unwillingness to consider the inevitability of death. Pinsky’s use of imagery, symbolism, and tone create a poetic experience that is like death, something every reader can relate to. In “Dying,” Pinsky describes how people are oblivious and almost uncaring when it comes to the thought of death. Pinsky is trying to convince the reader that they shouldn’t ignore the concept of death because life is shorter than it seems.
The song “Believer”, by Imagine Dragons, they sing about how the pain and depression, they were going through, has made him stronger than before. This song tells us that your greatest strengths come from your weaknesses. Imagine Dragons are trying too say that “Pain” and depression and sadness are only stepping stones to your strength, in this song. “Believer” is about that you don’t have to dwell on your troubles and can look on the bright side of things. This song also explains that you can become a “Believer” by embracing all of the problems going on in your life today. The theme of relationships in this song is highlighted through many various examples of similes, metaphors, and other literary devices throughout the song.
The Vacuum by Howard Nemerov talks about a widower and his late wife, and how he uses the vacuum as a symbol for her death. The poem expresses deep sorrow and sadness that derive from the loneliness of the speaker, after his other half’s passing away. Nemerov attempts to take his readers on a grief-stricken journey, by strategically employing figurative language (mainly personification, metaphor, simile, and alliteration), fractured rhyme schemes and turns in stanza breaks in the poem.
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.
Artist, Kesha, co-wrote and sang the song titled “Praying.” In the video that she created for the song she shows us, the audience, what she went through during her healing process from the sexual and mental violence she received. Through many methods, such as religious references, Kesha took us through her journey through ethos, logos, and pathos.
In the first stanza it is the semantic field of water: ‘waters’ (twice), ‘sea’, ‘drowning’ and ‘being drawn’. As I mentioned earlier, water is often the symbol of life but it also evokes tears, sadness and despair.
While reading the poem “Introduction to Poetry,” Billy Collins sends a message to the readers that they should be patient and impartial when it comes to analyzing a poem in order to see the true meaning behind the without being over analytical. There is a revieting situation that takes place because Billy Collins is delivering his message to all readers about the way that one should be able to read a poem. This poems educates the reader on how to be able to read and plunge into a poem, through using many techniques like mood, tone, and literary devices to do so. In the first two lines Collins demands that we tackle a poem with a invigorating eye. There should be an exploration of what the poem means to us. How does this poem apply to our
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.