“Beware: Do Not Read This Poem” written by Ishmael Reed portrays that the power of love can cause a person to feel deeply trapped to a point where they are afraid to face people and isolate themselves from others. The speaker begins with a story about an old woman who hides in her mirror-filled house, until her self-admiration resulted in the mirror's devouring her. Later occupants of the same house lose a loved one to the mirror.
The poem's speaker can be placed as a person watching a horror show on television. This poem is written in free verse, which means it does not contain regular stanzas and meter. This poem is for a general audience. The most distinct thing about the poem, is its nontraditional spelling and punctuation. The spaces scattered throughout the text reinforces the idea of loss and disappearance. After the third stanza, the subject changes from the woman to the poem itself. Which then the poem starts devouring the reader. The poem warns you away at first, "the hunger of this poem is legendary" which is an example of
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Reed uses a metaphor in line 25-26 “back off from this poem it is a greedy mirror” by introducing a human emotion. In lines 19-24, the speaker unexpectedly leaves behind the narrative a switching off of the show about the old woman and focuses on the power of this specific poem. The poem itself is figured as a beast. By personifying the poem as an animal with an unappeasable appetite, an ironic comparison is made to the mirror of the first section. While a mirror is expected to reflect, instead this mirror devours. Reed uses the imagery of poetry's unsatisfied appetite to endanger the reader, who is essentially attacked by the poem. The poem concludes with a "Statistic" about the number of persons who disappear and leave "only / a space in the lives of their friends" (ll. 47-48), ironically implying that the poem could be responsible for the
The overall theme of the poem is sacrifice, more specifically, for the people that you love. Throughout the poem color and personification are used to paint a picture in the reader's head. “Fog hanging like old Coats between the trees.” (46) This description is used to create a monochromatic, gloomy, and dismal environment where the poem takes
The essay will consider the poem 'Practising' by the poet Mary Howe. It will explore how this poem generates its meaning and focus by analysing its techniques, metaphorical construct and its treatment of memory. The poem can primarily be seen to be a poem of missed opportunity. In this way is comes to form, alongside other poems of Howe's a study about a certain kind of loss and the recuperative efforts of memory, alongside the certainty of the failure of this recuperation. The paper will begin by giving a context to the poem with regard to Howe's life and work and will then proceed to analyse it directly, drawing attention to how it can be seen to fulfil this thesis about its content and meaning.
A variety of issues are examined in Dawe’s poetry, most of which, aren’t uniquely Australian. In ‘The Wholly Innocent’, the poet utilises the narrator being an unborn baby to express their opinion on abortion. The emotive language; “defenceless as a lamb” and comparisons of abortion to “genocide”, all turn this poem into a type of activism, for pro-life; a concept that is certainly not uniquely Australian; as abortion is only legal (on request) in 4 states and territories. These issues aren’t always directly referenced in Dawe’s poetry, much like in ‘The Family Man’, which chooses to explore suicide and it’s effect. The man who killed himself had no name - he was just a statistic, that had “all qualifications blown away with a trigger’s touch”.
It’s detailed like a memory and provides the audience of just one incidence the narrator was able to recollect. The poem’s main focus is to take a little look into the disparity between traditional feminine
Friendship is strong and can last a lifetime. In John Green's “Freak the Geek “a girl has Has problems in Hoover Prep School with older girls. She uses the power of friendship to get through tough times with her best friend. Lauren makes in through challenges and the struggles of Hoover Prep School with the power of friendship. This friendship leads to her being able to cope with the school and helps her build bravery at the same time.
‘For What It’s Worth’ by Buffalo Springfield has a logical message because it is referring to the Sunset Strip Riots that took place in Hollywood during the 1960’s. People protested when they lost their civil rights due to a curfew law that was put into place. The song says, “Stop, children, what’s that sound. Everybody look- what’s going down?”
Through the poem’s tone, metaphors used, and symbols expressed the poem portrays that fear can make life seem charred or obsolete, but in reality life propels through all seasons and obstacles it faces. The poem begins with a tone of conversation, but as it progresses the tone changes to a form of fear and secretiveness. The beginning and ending line “we tell
Another example of figurative language that the author uses is personification in lines 18 and 19 “tucked away like a cabin or hogan in dense trees, come knocking.” to show in his poem that he will protect her. When she is sad she can use this poem to keep her safe. It also
The conflicting interests of the mother and the father result in a situation where one must make a sacrifice in order to preserve the connection in the family. The flat depressed tone of the poem reflects the mother’s unhappiness and frustration about having to constantly
The different key features also plays an important role for example the tone that is being formed by the lyrical voice that can be seen as a nephew or niece. This specific poem is also seen as an exposition of what Judith Butler will call a ‘gender trouble’ and it consist of an ABBA rhyming pattern that makes the reading of the poem better to understand. The poem emphasizes feminist, gender and queer theories that explains the life of the past and modern women and how they are made to see the world they are supposed to live in. The main theories that will be discussed in this poem will be described while analyzing the poem and this will make the poem and the theories clear to the reader. Different principals of the Feminist Theory.
This poem does not consist of any particular rhyme schemes and is free verse. This poem is also a narrative that is told by a young girl
This line is intended to demonstrate that although the poet
These four lines are important because as the image of salt in a weakened broth suggests utter dissolution and disorder, it makes the case that in order for the light of freedom and identity to seep through, we have to go through that period of darkness. Nye even uses the metaphor of a bus riding without stop [later in the stanza] to compare it to the presence of loss without kindness (Hong). In the second stanza, Nye emphasizes that realizing one’s ultimate mortality is a prerequisite to kindness when she says, “Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness/you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho/lies dead by the side of the road” (lines 14-16). This lines suggests that in order for humanity to put aside traits that make us different, we have to find solidarity in the fact that is our impending mortality. Nye uses the transcendent image of a dead Indian in a white poncho lying in the road to imply that the idea of mortality connects us all (Hong), even if different people of different backgrounds lead different lives.
It is as if the hunters or the critics are so fixated in finding the meaning of the poem that they threaten to kill the doe- thus destroying the beauty and meaning of the
The literary elements in this poem add to the effect the poem has on the reader, which can be different for everyone, but it makes the reader reflect on their own life and how kindness has changed