June Jordan’s poetry is known for its immediacy and accessibility as well as its interest in identity and the representation of personal experiences. Her poetry is often deeply autobiographical, political and often displays a radical, globalized notion of solidarity amongst the worlds oppressed. “Poem about my rights” by the poet, June Jordan can be seen as spoken word poetry rather than page poetry where oral performance and repetition are used to convey her feelings and messages to the listeners. Poetry can be divided into two groups; written poetry and spoken word poetry. Written poetry, also known as page poetry, is written and is analysed by the reader. Written poetry is seen as more universal than personal as the reader, instead of the …show more content…
Hearing Jordan reading this poem is crucial to appreciating and understanding the power of her poetry. “Poem about my rights” is personal, intimate and has a quality where the listeners feel as if the speaker is talking directly to them. Jordan uses language boldly and fully. She does not shy away from stereotypically or conventionally cuss words or ideas which may upset some listeners. In the poem she speaks about social and political issues that are real and issues which she feels should not be. She writes about injustice, repression and oppression. “Poem about my rights” captures the range of Jordan’s subjects, as well as rich juxtaposing and free verse, linearly arranged sentences, parallelism, unpunctuated parenthetical remarks, enjambment and frequently used slashes to hold ideas together. Enjambment is used also used to speed up the tempo at which the poem is …show more content…
The speaker makes use of repetition which is a very important aspect in “Poem about my rights” where certain phrases and words are repeated numerous times. The poet uses the repetitive phrase, “I am the wrong sex, the wrong age the wrong skin...” (Jordan 8-9) for the first time, which contributes to the success of the repetition in the poem as the word “wrong” appear in the poem a few times which indicates the importance of the word in the poem. The word “wrong” refers to the victims enumerated throughout the poem as the speaker, and all other oppressed persons and nations who are victims of rape because they are viewed by their torturers to be wrong. Although the name of the poem reflects on human rights and “right and wrong” are subjects of this poem, the word “right” never comes forth in this poem although the word “wrong” is often used and repeated. Jason mentions that Jordan never says that she is right and never says that she as a person has rights although she admits that she is not
In 1963, while Martin Luther King was in Birmingham Jail, King delivered a powerful letter to his Clergymen in order to take time and respond to the criticism he had received over his work in Birmingham. The Letter from Birmingham Jail addresses many problems, including the slow action occuring to stop racial discrimination. In order to do this, Martin Luther King uses several techniques in paragraph thirteen and fourteen of his letter such as repetition, personification, as well as allusion, to support his claim that racial unity has taken too long. To emphasize the passing of time and the need to take action now, King uses repetition and allusions in paragraph thirteen to assist his claims. King starts strongly with the bold statement “freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed”, which in this case, the oppressors refer to the whites, and the oppressed are the negroes.
This powerful quote reflects the pain and frustration experienced by the main character, Starr, as she deals with the unjust killing of her friend by a police officer. Her words capture the deep sense of injustice felt by oppressed communities in the face of systemic violence. Starr questions whether her own life is considered worthless by the person who took her friend's life, highlighting the unequal value placed on different lives. This quote reminds us of the urgent need for justice and the importance of recognizing the worth of every individual, regardless of their race or social status. By highlighting the inequalities in the value placed on human life, this quote sheds light on the broader struggle for equality and emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and addressing systemic
This proves that Jack is confident about poetry because he is being inspired by other poetics and he is now starting to write his own poems. Throughout the book, Jack’s thoughts about poetry have grow from timid, then he changed to reluctant and enthusiastic, and now he is confident about poetry because he is now starting to enjoy poetry more and write his own
The Poem “The Poet” by Tom Wayman is a poem that takes the reader through the physical characteristics of your average poet. The entirety of the “The Poet” consists of a list of 14 descriptors that could be used to describe the typical poet. Each of the descriptive phrases seems to be negative towards the unknown poet that he is talking about. Although the poem seems quite literal, a figurative message is portrayed though text, tone, structure and the literary devices used in the poem. To start off, the specific word usage that Wayman chose to use gives off the impression that poets have their drawbacks.
Julia Alvarez, in her poem “’Poetry Makes Nothing Happen’?”, writes that poems do play a role in people’s lives. She supports her idea by using relateable examples of how poems might change someone’s life. Her first example is simple, poetry can entertain someone on long drives. This does not only aply to long dirves however, Alvarez uses this to show that poetry does not have to have a big influence on someone’s life, instead it can affect a person in the smallest of ways, such as entertainment. The second example describes poetry comforting someone after the loss of a loved one.
She presents these issues in a spoken word form accessible to all people due to its clarity, less formal language, affordability, and rapidly growing style of poetry. Spoken word poetry tends to be a less formal form of poetry with a distinct focus on keeping a diverse audience engaged. This informal form allows for a vast audience to be exposed to the worlds issues, such as inequalities, even if they lack
Hope, Rage, and Sacrifice Oppression is an illness that has plagued the world for centuries. This is shown in “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar and “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou as the birds are trapped by oppression and the birds must break free from it. Maya Angelou and Paul Laurence Dunbar use the central symbols of the free bird and the caged bird to reveal the theme of oppression. The symbols of rage and hope accompany the theme oppression.
I agree with Karl Shapiro’s statement: “The poet really does see the world differently, and everything in it. He does no deliberately go into training to sharpen his senses; he is a poet because his senses are naturally open and vitally sensitive. But what the poet sees with his always new vision is not what is " imaginary"; he sees what others have forgotten how to see." Poets really do looked at the world differently than normal people. A talented poet always have thoughts in the littlest thing that people tend to ignore.
The essence of great poetry lies with the author’s ability to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. Most poets use universal themes to connect their audience through emotion and experience, making the written theme relatable. But it is only when combined with the use of carefully placed literary techniques that this connection is enhanced and the work transforms from simple words on paper to an art form. Gwen Harwood uses a number of her poems to connect us with the universal journey from childhood innocence to experience and adulthood. Harwood also weaves the idea of memory into her writing, as a way to trigger emotion through a connection to the past, a connection to feelings that transcend through time.
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.
The poem was written in a time where black people and women were dehumanized where those in power abused the power to gain more and those without power were continuously affected by it. Reading the poem and had an impact on me with the dictation of lexis, however all of these feelings were heightened when I listened to the oral performance. The poem starts of in the present tense “Even tonight and I need to take a walk” (Jordan 1) which gives a setting to the scene, in the opening few lines Jordan uses the repetition of “I” and “my” which made the poem for me more personal, the use of repetition in the opening part of the poem produced a deeper connection to the poem, repetition of the words placed emphasis and clarity of the words which came after “my body posture my gender identity my age…” (Jordan
The lyrical style of each these poems, along with their subject matter, help to suggest that in the midst of the suppression of our natural human rights (as suggested by philosophers like John Locke), we are to make our “song” known by practicing love in both our lives and the rest
The poem is written is her voice as the narrator as she says how she will rise to the occasion despite oppression and the inherent painful past of the black man. She says that despite oppression and unfair treatment of black people, they will rise above it. The lines opening lines ‘You may tread me in the very dirt/ But still, like dust, I'll rise’ show the determination of black people during the Civil Rights Movement and the way in which they were determined to rise above racial
However, the poem is written first person point of view and is a lyrical
‘Still I Rise’ by the American, Maya Angelou presents the character of a black woman who is oppressed in the 1970s but refuses to accept this. ‘Disabled’ by Wilfred Owen, however, is concerned with a character who is ‘broken’ after the disabilities he suffers in the First World War at the beginning of the twentieth century. The poem ‘Still I Rise’ is about a woman who discloses that she will overcome anything due to her self-confidence. The line ‘But still, like dust, I’ll rise’ is a metaphor that expresses that she will not be downtrodden by others.