If one looks at the structure of stanza one and four together, it seems as if the words “dream deferred” should complete the sentence on line 13. The speaker maybe tried to complete the sentence and was interrupted again by the
Esperanza is a very timid little girl. After pestering her mother to give her a note to eat in the canteen, she is seemingly unable to answer the nun who asks what she is doing there, instead meekly holding up the note and scurrying upstairs to Sister Superior. When upstairs, she starts crying while having a conversation with the nun, saying “I always cry when the nuns yell at me, even if they’re not yelling.” This is yet another example of Esperanza’s shyness and social awkwardness. Lastly, after being told that she can eat at canteen for the day, she cries and eats her rice sandwich alone. Esperanza is also physically weak and malnourished.
The poem A Step Away From Them by Frank O’Hara has five stanzas written in a free verse format with no distinguishable rhyme scheme or meter. The poem uses the following asymmetrical line structure “14-10-9-13-3” while using poetic devices such as enjambment, imagery, and allusion to create each stanza. A Step Away From Them occurs in one place, New York City. We know this because of the lines, “On/ to Times Square, / where the sign/blows smoke over my head” (13-14) and “the Manhattan Storage Warehouse.” (line 43) The actions introduced in the first stanza confirm that it is a city even further: “for a walk among the hum-colored cabs. First, down the sidewalk where laborers feed their dirty glistening torsos sandwiches and Coca-Cola, with yellow helmets on.
The tension presented in the first stanza is due to childbirth, and the pain and difficulty involved with that. The first line, “ I can remember you, child” , is an automatic attention - drawer, it also causes tension as it shows how fearless the poet is due to the boldness of the statement. The enjambement used within the first stanza allows the tension to build, as it acts like a continuous build- up to something significant (in this case - childbirth). This tension is then continued with the alliteration of “first Fierce confrontation”. The emphasis supplied by the literary device means that this quote will stay in our minds, whilst allowing us to easily flow through the stanza.
This conflicted stanza demonstrates how the persona's perspective of life suddenly changes and the learning curve one has to go through when being exposed to new environments and situations. While she was previously full of enthusiasm to discover new things, a single negative experience is sufficient alter how she views life. As the persona ages, "[she learns to] underst[and, in the third stanza,] that nothing c[an] be ruined in one stroke" (21-2). This represents a shift in the persona's perspective on life
It also helps to keep each stanza limited to five to six lines, but packed with insight on a specific idea, just like Kooser. Kooser asks a very deep question in his piece, “if there’s some one thing to live for, how can we choose just one among so many?” I try to make my audience think like this when I observe other people in the place and wonder what their lives may be like. These stanzas are supposed to be insightful and short on
The poem, “Pity Me Not,” by Edna St. Vincent Millay has a theme of heartbreak. The woman the author is writing about replays in her mind how things used to be compared to how they are now. The woman realizes things will never be like they once were and she is ready to accept that. She is heartbroken over that fact that her husband no longer loves her anymore but instead of asking for sympathy, she says do not pity me. In the beginning of the poem written by Millay, she talks about the changes between the woman's past and present, “pity me not for beauties passed away/from field and thicket as the year goes by” (Lines 3-4).
Each stanza represents a period of motherhood: pregnancy, birth and post birth. In the first stanza Lorde recalls each day she grew larger and the first feeling of movement with the baby. She then lists the growth of the baby, this represents her pregnancy stage. In the second stanza Lorde speaks of giving birth, she uses imagery and is able to make her feelings jump off of the page. She is able to fathom and represent feelings of giving birth.
However, the subsequent stanzas show the opposite. The last stanzas use ironic imagery, but the change of speakers further increases the outright nature of it. Ozymandias’ plaque says, “Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! (11)” However: Nothing beside remains. Round the
There is a strong rhyme between the lines ‘bubbled and doubled’ ‘buds unbuttoned’ and ‘creases from their frills’. These lines created the image of flowers blossoming. At the end, he stated the season of the year, “It was the season after blossoming, Before the forming of the fruit” bring out that it is not May but rising June. In the third stanza, the author described the change of the sky as the day fades and the night rises. The line “in the sky the dust dissected tangential light” showed the change in time and the mood of the poem.