River Tanikawa

The poems in this section are about the hardships of life and the problems that people have to face, yet there is an undertone of hope in them too, the problems may not be solved, but the poems show that there is a sense of faith in human resilience.

As we get older we tend to reflect more on our life and get our priorities together. We tend to realize who and what is important, the people who mean the most to us and the ones we can’t live without. Who would those significant individuals be for us? For most people it would be their parents. In the poems “My Father’s Song” by Simon J. Ortiz, and “My Mother” by Ellen Bryant Voigt, both writers express their emotion towards a parent. The poems are similar in many ways simply because they share a parent child relationship, they are also vastly different. “My Fathers Song” is a poem about a son who lost his father and is grieving and referring back to old memories, reflecting on their past and the wonderful time he had with his father. “My Mother” on the other hand is a poem about a daughter who lost her mother and is having a difficult time coping as she reflects on the decisions she made as a child and how that affected her relationship with her mother. Despite their differences, the two poems share a true connection of love towards their parent. Most notably “My Fathers Song” and “My Mother” differ in the relationship with their parent, the settings in which the memories they hold of their parents take place, and who they are mourning over, yet the two have a strong emphasis on love.

In the poem by Joy Harjo called “Eagle Poem,” Harjo talks about prayer and life and how they revolve around mother-nature. She suggests that while being one with nature, we feel we are in a place in which we haven’t imagined and the things in which we would love to do in that magnificent and calming place. After one reads the poem, he/she enjoys the lyrical type of it. This is because “Eagle Poem” sticks to one idea and extends it throughout the entire poem. For instance, it talks about prayer, nature, and animals from start to finish.

In Father and Child, as the persona moves on from childhood, her father becomes elderly and is entertained by simple things in nature, “birds, flowers, shivery-grass.” These symbols of nature remind the persona of the inconsistency of life and the certainty of death, “sunset exalts its known symbols of transience,” where sunset represents time. Both poems are indicative of the impermanence of life and that the persona has managed to mature and grow beyond the initial fearlessness of childhood moving onto a sophisticated understanding of death.

Steven Herrick’s verse novel “By the River” is very successful in conveying the significant ideas about human nature. He uses key themes such as grief, environmental influence and coming of age to explore these ideas. To convey the themes Herrick uses multiple techniques such as imagery, repetition, personification and positive and negative influence throughout his text.

This poem uses biblical imagery and grotesque association with water to depict a mother drowning her own child through desire to follow the morals of civilization of that time.

The most complex relationship one could ever try to understand is the relationship of a child and his or her parents. In the poem, “Our Son Swears He Has 102 Gallons of Water in His Body,” by Naomi Shihab Nye, the speaker effectively portrays the damaged relationship between a child and his parents. The son in the poem believes he knows everything, and his “know-it-all” mentality is the source of the family’s troubles. Through details, imagery, and a shift in the last stanza, the speaker conveys the son’s stubbornness.

In addition to this, belonging to a family is a key concept in this novel. The novel opens with an alluring introduction to the family; a blissful atmosphere is created through the picturesque icons of their family life. The composer uses small photograph like icons to allude towards the widely acknowledged contentment that is readily associated with the memories in a picture album. Tan introduces the motif of the paper crane which he carries through the length of his novel as a symbol of affection and belonging between the family members. The next pages signify the break in contentment as the man begins his journey and a salient image of the couple with their hands grasping the other’s parallels the anxiety and despair in their downcast facial expressions. Although the gloomy atmosphere, the light sepia tones in the picture allow an insight into the tender and loving relationship that the family members share. Upon the man’s departure the paper crane motif returns and he hands it to his daughter as a token of his undying love for her. His migratory experience is studded by the comfort and ease that he obtains from a picture of his family. In paralleled scenes on the boat and the new apartment, the

Poetic techniques displayed through the ideas, poetic features and style of the poet, reveal concepts which transcend time and place. In Gwen Harwood’s poem “the violets” her ability to interweave past and present emphasises the importance of memory in preserving ones journey though the universal experiences of growth, maturity and mortality. Similarly the poem “Mother who gave me life” demonstrates the memory of motherhood as a timeless quintessential part of the human condition. And lastly In Harwood’s “father and Child”, the connection between the father and son/daughter highlights that transformation throughout childhood is inevitable. Through the content and the language, the ways in which human experiences reveal concepts which

The appreciation of nature is illustrated through imagery ‘and now the country bursts open on the sea-across a calico beach unfurling’. The use of personification in the phrase ‘and the water sways’ is symbolic for life and nature, giving that water has human qualities. In contrast, ‘silver basin’ is a representation of a material creation and blends in with natural world. The poem is dominated by light and pure images of ‘sunlight rotating’ which emphasizes the emotional concept of this journey. The use of first person ‘I see from where I’m bent one of those bright crockery days that belong to so much I remember’ shapes the diverse range of imagery and mood within the poem. The poet appears to be emotional about his past considering his thoughts are stimulated by different landscapes through physical journey.

Every individual in this world faces some type of problem through out their lives, and everyone overcomes them in different ways. People sometimes release their stress and problems through writing what they feel, and by writing they feel they go somewhere else. Amy Tan, a Chinese American, struggled with her true identity which influence her works which mainly focus on identity, the Chinese American dream, and family struggles. Amy Tan had a childhood full of ups and downs, and they are all part of her stories and poems. She overcame many obstacles in her life and learned many lessons that are all reflected in her works. Many of Tan’s works are about personal experiences she had and about her family.

The use of symbolism and imagery is beautifully orchestrated in a magnificent dance of emotion that is resonated throughout the poem. The two main ideas that are keen to resurface are that of personal growth and freedom. Furthermore, at first glimpse this can be seen as a simple poem about a women’s struggle with her counterpart. However, this meaning can be interpreted more profoundly than just the causality of a bad relationship.

Poetry has a role in society, not only to serve as part of the aesthetics or of the arts. It also gives us a view of what the society is in the context of when it was written and what the author is trying to express through words. The words as a tool in poetry may seem ordinary when used in ordinary circumstance. Yet, these words can hold more emotion and thought, however brief it was presented.

Insignificant droplets of water plunging to the ground, gradually elaborating into a system which proclaims its existence with such scintillation and momentous significance, the river. The river that carries the same inexorable rate which we live our lives by, parallels to the current of an unstoppable river. Shifted to different directions by the different obstacles encountered, the river finds different routes to get to the destination it desires and life mimics its nature as many avenues close and others open. But the river carries on and does not pass through the same obstacle twice, it does not struggle or brawl the happenings opposed to it, it simply takes another path and learns from its mistakes. The river symbolizes life. In the book Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. The river plays a significant role on a reflective surface which redirects his actions into the eyes of the protagonist, Siddhartha.

“Thou art an emblem of the glow/ Of beauty- the unhidden heart-/ The playful maziness of art” (3-5). “To The River___” by Edgar Allan Poe is a poem about a young boy who is enthralled with the daughter of Old Alberto. The origin of the poem may be explained by the fact that Poe wrote it at the mere age of eighteen; a time when emotions flow freely and the mind is yet to be fully developed. The poem describes the young girl as a perfect example of raw and pure beauty through classic literary elements such as imagery, tone, rhyme, and diction. “To the River” is a beautiful poem that compares the elegance of a young woman to a crystal clear flowing river.