Waniek: Poem Analysis

Wanick’s use of colors to describe the quilt shows the reader the connection she has with the quilt. “Six Van Dyke brown squares, two white ones, and one square the yellowbrown of Mama’s cheeks…” describes not only the appearance of her quilt but also the many colors of her ancestor’s skin. The quilt’s colors and squares impacts the way she identifies herself and helps her realize who she is. Frequent dreams under the blanket about her grandmother’s childhood suggests that she sees herself within her grandmother. Although she is of white and Native American descent, Wanick is not embarrassed by her culture and hopes to pass it on to her unconceived child in the future.

Marriage is an important part of life of many modern societies. The institution of marriage was formed many centuries ago. While some of its aspects vary based on specific country or community, but the core is often the same – by contracting a marriage, both sides undertake specific commitments. Specifically, they promise to care about children that already exist or will appear in the family; or to be faithful to the partner. There is a serious problem with the second issue. Adultery is an event that was often mentioned by popular literature sources including the Bible. The poetry is not an exception. James Dickey and Anne Sexton focused on the topic in their poems “Adultery” and “For My Lover, Returning to His Wife” respectively. Authors described the theme from different points of view. Dickey highlights the considerable age of the practice and treats it as an inevitable evil. The adultery existed, exist and will continue to exist in the community. Sexton looks at the problem from the female point of view; her poem is written from the

The poem Rebirth of Slick problematizes the universal belief of success in a way that it is not only achieved by an individual, but rather a larger group of people. They protect their legacy to preserve their interests, pursue their dreams, and to continuously develop existing ideas that will broaden their influence. According to the urban dictionary, the meaning of “rebirth of slick” is “the sudden epitome of rap and hip-hop. The most original and realization of what goes down in the "hood" or lower class urban environments. Also, shows how those who live in these places do not seem to care of what happens around them and just live their life a cool, peace, groove smooth, jive, and roll”. On the other hand, the rebirth of slick is also a song composed by a hip-hop trio, Digable Planets.

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.

Clint Smith is a writer, teacher, and doctoral candidate in Education at Harvard University with a concentration in Culture, Institutions, and Society. Smith Clint wrote a poem called “Something You should Know.” The poem is about an early job he had in a Petsmart. The poet allows the readers into his personal life, but before he had trouble opening up to people and his work. Moreover, Clint wrote an insight in the poem about relying in anything to feel safe and he says it is the most terrifying thing any person can do.

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.

An obvious symbol in this poem is the individual squares of the quilt. Waniek describes the individual squares and later parallels the squares to the speaker’s family members and leaves later in the poem. The color of each square, “brown… white… and… yellow brown,” (ln 15-17) are compared in the final stanza to the color of her family’s skin- her “father’s burnt umber” and her “mother’s ochre” match the brown and yellow brown squares (ln 39-40). The white squares account for her “grandfather’s white family” (ln 26). The detail about her grandfather is especially important to note because prior to her grandfather’s family, the speaker notes her Meema’s “yellow sisters” (ln 25). With consideration to the time period her grandparent’s would have lived in, one can infer there would be some racial hostility, or at best, some tensions. Racial diversity is also apparent in the detail that the speaker’s father has brown skin and the mother has yellow. The speaker notes this rich diversity prior to discussing her future children. The concluding lines, “I’d call it The Century Quilt, / after its pattern of leaves” can be interpreted in that the speaker is talking about her diversity, and the diversity of her children, from their shared ancestry. The squares for her family in her quilt show the impact that her complex heritage has on the speaker, and how her ancestry is important to

The quilt has “six Van Dyke brown squares, two white ones, and one square the yellow brown of mama’s cheeks.” The author continues by talking about her grandma’s dreams of being among her “yellow sisters, their grandfather’s white family nodding at them when they met.” And then looking inwards she speculates, “I’d dream of myself...of my father’s burnt umber pride, and my mother’s ochre gentleness.” The use of descriptive colors that are equivalent to those in the quilt convince the reader of the pride, gentleness, and respect instilled not only in the author’s life, but also in the

The stanza lengths also suggest the relationship between the beloved fabrics and time, experience, and imagination. Waniek divides her poem into three stanzas of varying lengths, each stanza focusing on particular points in the speaker’s experience. Set in the past, the twelve line first stanza finds the speaker reflecting on her childhood and her experiential connection to blankets in the possession of both her “Meema” and her “Daddy.” The eight line second stanza touches briefly on the present, and the speaker’s acquisition of a quilt so beloved she’d “like to die under [it].” Longer than the first two stanzas combined, the twenty-five line final stanza finds the speaker blending past, present, and future. She imagines a future where the quilt “caress[es]” her, prompting her to visualize having “good dreams/for a hundred years.” This reverie leads immediately into the speaker contemplating a past where her grandmother, “under her [own] blanket” has dreams of a yet-to-be-bom daughter. Time and imagination shift yet again, with the speaker’s reflection on her “childhood of miracles” followed by final imaginings of her own “as yet unconceived”

The quilt that the speaker discovers contains earth tone squares. Each of these colors symbolizes a different family member. A single square that is “the yellowbrown of Mama’s cheeks”. The fact that there is a single square of this color shows that the speaker’s mother is unparalleled. The speaker’s father is described as having “burnt umber pride”. The father was a war veteran as revealed in the first stanza when the speaker talks about the “army green” blanket that was given to the speaker’s father by “Supply”. The reason that the father’s color is brown is because he passed away. The brown symbolizes his burial plot. When the speaker talks about having a brown father and yellow mother this also tells of their skin tones. The

Waniek's choice of structure for this particular poem is unique in that it alternates between short phrases and winded, descriptive lines. This gives the poem the child-like atmosphere that Waniek was intending to illustrate. It is evident that the author is an older individual who is reflecting on both their life and the lives of those who had used the quilt prior. Thus, the alternating between short and long phrases truly captures the essence of childlike excitement in that an individual is excited

Evaluate the use of melody, rhythm and texture in creating an effective setting of the poems by A.E Housman in “On Wenlock Edge” by Vaughan Williams.

“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.

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.