An Analysis Of Mary Oliver's Crossing The Swamp

Throughout life, we all go through rough moments where we think all is lost. However, we as humans always grow from these experiences and turn into beings with a new awakening and understanding of the world. In a passage from The Crossing by Cormac McCarthy, the narrator describes a striking ordeal, in which a man is coping with the death of a she-wolf. Despite the cause of death being left ambiguous, this dramatic experience has a vivid effect on the main character—causing him to change and grow into a new man by the end of the passage. McCarthy uses eloquent and expressive diction to create imagery which gives the reader an understanding of the narrator’s experience, supplemented by spiritual references as well as setting changes, elucidating the deep sadness and wonder felt by the protagonist.

In the journey written by Mary Oliver, she writes about the journey one has to take in order to become more aware of who they are as individuals. In order to find themselves, the reader must break away from society's control over their actions and instead find their own inner voice. The speaker in the journey reveals, symbolism, mood, tone, style, and repetition, enjambment, and dictation to captivate the readers. From the beginning of the journey, the speaker introduces us to the sudden realization, that the moment we find our own inner voice, is the exact moment we will know true bliss. However, the speaker wants the readers to act fast, so the speaker constructs the poem to illustrate her message without having to put into words by rushing

Lucille Parkinson McCarthy, author of the article, “A Stranger in Strange Lands: A College Student Writing Across the Curriculum”, conducted an experiment that followed one student over a twenty-one month period, through three separate college classes to record his behavioral changes in response to each of the class’s differences in their writing expectations. The purpose was to provide both student and professor a better understanding of the difficulties a student faces while adjusting to the different social and academic settings of each class.

“An Entrance to the Woods” is an essay by Wendell Berry about the serenity and importance of nature in his life. In this essay, the author uses tone shifts from dark to light to convey his idea of finding rebirth and rejuvenation through nature. In the beginning of the essay, Berry has left civilization for the first time in a while, and finds himself missing human company and feeling “inexplicably sad” (671). This feeling of sadness is in part from the woods itself, and partly due to Berry leaving the hustle and bustle of normal life in the cities, and the violent change from constant noise to silence causes him to feel lonely in the woods. As a result of feeling alone in the woods, the tone of the essay is dark and brooding, as seen through Berry’s somber diction and mood, as seen on page 671: “And then a heavy feeling of melancholy and lonesomeness comes over me. This does not

In the poem, “Crossing the swamp”, Mary Oliver makes the swamp a resemblance of her and her life. And how we so often get “stuck in the mud”. In the line that says “here is swamp, here is struggle”, Oliver very bluntly put, the swamp is her struggle. Her day to day, life is a constant struggle to which she feels as if she is constantly being pulled down and not being able to achieve her full potential in whatever it is she chooses to do. The relationship between the author, Mary Oliver and the swamp is a relationship of the inevitable. At some point in all of our lives we will hit a bump in the road and get stuck in the mud for a period of time, or at least feel as if we are stuck in the mud. Life throws us so much that we sometimes think we

Lee Maracle’s “Charlie” goes through multiple shifts in mood over the course of the story. These mood are ones of hope and excitement as Charlie and his classmates escape the residential school to fear of the unknown and melancholy as Charlie sets off alone for home ending with despair and insidiousness when Charlie finally succumbs to the elements . Lee highlights these shifts in mood with the use of imagery and symbolism in her descriptions of nature.

The speaker begins on a stream bank where love lays slumbering, and where he hears surges sob, then he moves to the wild who case to have been dumbfounded, then the speaker moves to the garden of love and a house of prayer has been assembled over where he used to play, covered in fog. The poem makes a ton of utilization of humanoid attribution, love is sleeping, and plants are sobbing and talking. This makes a surreal environment for the reader and starts to expand on the dim tone of the poem where love is lethargic and the characteristic world is shouting out and disheartened. At that point we have this congregation in the fog on the green where the speaker used to play, this brings the poem to a significantly more dismal wavelength. The congregation is covered, proposing obscurity and mystery, and it is fabricated where the speaker played, ending further playing or fun from occurring there. It is as though the poem is continually under a cloud, making me feel dismal for what has been lost or concealed.

In the excerpt from “Cherry Bomb” by Maxine Clair, the narrator makes use of diction, imagery and structure to characterize her naivety and innocent memories of her fifth-grade summer world.

In a simile, she compares gardening to “boxing… The wins versus the losses” (Hudes 16). Through this comparison, Hudes conveys Ginny’s deep desire for a sense of control and success in her life. This desire is fed by the memory of her father, who was only bearable when he was gardening. Specifically, the assertion of this desire for control is evident as she recalls that her father “was a mean bastard…” but “became a saint if you put a flower in his hand” (Hudes 15). From those experiences of dealing with her father, a psychological analogy between nature and peace was instilled in Ginny’s mind at a young age, and is what she relies on as an adult to handle her emotional trauma. Additionally, Ginny constructs a metaphor, as she asserts that “a seed is a contract for the future” (Hudes 16). To Ginny, planting a seed guarantees that she will soon be able to visually see the fruits of her labor, and will be able to relish in the joy of creating new life. This point means that imagery is as vitally important to Ginny as it is to her story, as her visualization of the future of her garden fuels her happiness and ability to cope with what she is going

This poem dramatizes that not everything is as good as it seems, no matter how much one wants it to be so. The speaker is a writer who compares and contrasts his life with one of a painter, and describes how the life of a painter is more captivating and demanding than being a writer. The speaker describes writing as being “hunched over a ring of lamplight” (Collins 3) and continues to describe the act of writing as less enthralling. As the poem progresses, the speaker’s attitude towards painting is more of a dream-like mirage while the attitude towards writing is monotonous and gloomy. The poem accentuates this general idea of painting being superior until the end, in which the speaker describes painting in a worse light, comparing it to “grasping the ledge of a window/ so as not to fall to the street below” (23-24). The speaker changes his mood from the beauty of being a painter to the struggle it involves.

When we think of nature, we often associate it with feelings of growth, strength, and beauty. Nature symbolizes re-birth, and our expectation of nature to soldier on in any situation represents perseverance. After natural disaster, human tragedy, war, etc., nature has the ability to cover up horrifying images in history. In his poem, “Grass,” Carl Sandburg uses repetition, verbs, and free verse to represent the forces of nature covering up the reality of an ugly, war-ridden and tragic history.

The first poem describes how the speaker is consumed by this love and all of its hurt because the person who planted the feeling within them changed their mind. A rose is used as a metaphor for this love. I appreciated how this poem is openly reminiscing on a past experience. Poems are often written about past events, but I always find it refreshing to read a poem that is recognizing the time distance between the poem’s time and the time it’s written. I think you write about this personal thing in enough depth to express what you mean. The word choice was great, “burgeoning” was interesting to come across. I think the sound works well since you repeat certain sounds, like “-ing”. I especially loved the last stanza where you wrote “The artist

The Poem “XIV” from Midsummer by Derek Walcott, tells the story of a significant trip taken by the narrator. He Travels down an old and winding road that takes him deep into a Caribbean forest. Once arriving at his destination the narrator is told a mesmerising tale by an old story teller. The way that the author presents this story to us is unique in what it reveals about the narrator's recollection. Within this poem walcott uses poetic devices such as metaphors and mood in order to convey the significance of the event.

Elizabeth Bishop, the Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, arrived on the island of North Haven on the morning boat from Rockland on July 16, 1974. “It was a beautiful day . . . ” She was accompanied by Frank Bidart, a younger poet, and Alice Methfessel, her companion and lover, the energetic and very capable administrator of Kirkland House at Harvard.

Fear is something that affects all people through their lives. Not all fears are equal, but our experiences with fear will differ from one person to another. It can function as a barrier that prevents us from experience certain tings, but sometimes it works as a driving force that helps us overstepping our boundaries. We can choose not to let anxiety and fears control our lives, but instead choose to let courage drive us forward.