The Day The Lady Died Poem Analysis
Most elegies put their focus on the departed subject of the poem--and for good reason. One of the main purposes of an elegy is to remember and celebrate the life of the individual that has passed on. But the narrative O’Hara’s poem “The Day the Lady Died” doesn’t put most of its focus on the departed, but rather follows the day-to-day activities of the speaker before he discovers that Billie Holiday has died. This narrative isn’t used to diminish the importance of Holiday, however. Instead, it is used to show the nature of mortality in regard to how the world continues on normally even after the death of a celebrity. But rather than saying this means that Holiday’s life was unimportant, the fleeting nature of mortality shows how important Holiday was to some people, and how she touched their lives even in small ways. “The Day the Lady Died” is not a grand celebration of an individual, but rather a celebration of how one individual affected those around her in small ways. The majority …show more content…
The ending of the poem shows the speaker ruminating on what the death of Holiday personally means to him. Instead of realizing that she contributed nothing of significance to his life, he recalls a time when he saw her perform: “thinking of/leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT/while she whispered a song along the keyboard.” The speaker first heard Holiday in a mundane spot--near a bathroom door--just as he discovered her death in a mundane manner. She made enough of an impact on the speaker that he does not simply note her death and go on with the rest of his day. Rather, he stops in his tracks and suddenly remembers a place usually associated undesirable connotations as something special, because that is where he first heard Holiday sing. The speaker further cements this by ending the poem saying, “everyone and I stopped breathing” when they heard Holiday
Death Over Water Poem Analysis
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10 Day Poem Analysis
228 Words | 1 PagesWho would think a 10-day suspension from high school would ignite the hunger within Chancelor Bennett, or Chance the Rapper, to become the artist he is today? His teachers doubted his aspirations to be a musician, but in this small window of time he embarked on a journey to prove himself, thus the mixtape 10 Day was born. But he didn’t stop there. Chance the Rapper would go on to dilute the stagnant pool of rap and hip-hop to reflect important issues and emit a sound that uplifts and inspires. Songs that spread good vibes about love, worth, and respect, like his song “Everybody is something”, where he sings, “everybody is somebody’s everything, noboby’s nothing”.
The Farmer's Bride Poem Analysis
769 Words | 4 PagesThe Farmer’s Bride by Charlotte Mew. The poet presents the cruel society through the structure of the ballad. This is depicted in the end stopped lines like ‘the shut of a winter’s day.’ The lack of enjambment crystallises the trapped situation the woman faces in this oppressive society.
Poem Analysis: A Story By Li-Young Lee
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History Lesson Poem Analysis
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Poem Analysis Of 'A Story' By Li-Young Lee
793 Words | 4 PagesThe poem “A Story” by Li-Young Lee depicts the complex relationship between a boy and his father when the boy asks his father for a story and he can’t come up with one. When you’re a parent your main focus is to make your child happy and to meet all the expectations your child meets. When you come to realize a certain expectation can’t satisfy the person you love your reaction should automatically be to question what would happen if you never end up satisfying them. When the father does this he realizes the outcome isn’t what he’d hope for. He then finally realizes that he still has time to meet that expectation and he isn’t being rushed.
Poem Analysis: Minor Miracle By Marilyn Nelson
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At David's Grave Poem Analysis
460 Words | 2 PagesThe short “At David’s Grave,” by Denise Levertov talks about a deceased loved one that is with them while being at the cemetery. David is around them in the “open field, in sunlight, among the few trees,” (Levertov). He is only there because they are there with him, and whenever they leave he is with them, going with them as the good things that come. To live their lives with happiness and the joy that comes with living life each day. They know that he is never alone at the cemetery, never laying in the field filled with cold graves.
Personal Narrative: Running Deer
647 Words | 3 PagesIn my arms, my young daughter took her last breath. Her once-strong, -lively body was now as frail as a wilted flower. And her eyes—her black, playful eyes—were peacefully closed, never again to open. I listened hopelessly to the women’s song of mourning, sung in our native Cherokee tongue. At my side, my wife, Yellow Blossom’s, voice rang out smoothly and softly, but intermittently interrupted by brief sobs.
Elegy For My Father Who Is Not Dead Poem Analysis
1043 Words | 5 PagesThere are many poems that discuss the relationship between a poet and their parents. The poets Andrew Hudgins and Dylan Thomas were in their late 30s when they wrote poems about their fathers. Thomas ' father was ill during the time that he wrote the poem. It is unknown if Hudgin 's father was ill during writing of his poem (Kirszner & Mandell 890-891). Andrew Hudgin 's poem, “Elegy for My Father, Who is Not Dead,” and Dylan Thomas ' poem, “Do not go gentle into that good night,” explore their feelings of their fathers ' imminent deaths.
Analysis Of The Poem For My Sister By Liz Lochhead
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For My Death Father Poem Analysis
959 Words | 4 PagesJung believes that a writer’s treatment of universal archetypes is negotiations with cultural norms: Therein is the social significance of art: it is constantly at work and it is the spirit of the age, conjuring up the forms in which age is lacking. Further Jung in his animus and anima says that every man carries with him the eternal image of woman; the woman too has her inborn image of man.(Jung-80-83) Jennings exceeds it by daring a lyric persona that blends and speaks for everyman and every woman. On a personal level, Jennings recorded dreams of being a boy in search of a mother and father and of a third sex ‘neither wholly masculine nor feminine but partaking of both’. This ambivalence of sex and gender is manifest in her too familiar conflict
The Day Lady Died
1096 Words | 5 PagesThe Day Lady Died “The Day Lady Died” by Frank O’Hara is an elegy (poem of pourning and lament on someone’s demise) to Billie Holiday. O’Hara’s elegy is untraditional in its form because the poem does not seem to be about Holiday at all until only towards the end where she is described in the final lines of the poem. Billie Holiday, the Jazz singer died of liver disease at a hospital in New York, early morning on July 17, 1959. Frank O’Hara was walking around New York, following her mundane routine when he gets to see a newspaper with Billie Holiday’s face on it. O’Hara had been to several of her performances.
Home Is So Sad Poem Analysis
1694 Words | 7 PagesThe home mourns and wishes for its family because without them, it will be what it was before, a house. Just like the empty vase, one of the few objects that remain inside, it has lost all meaning without life pumping through its core. Larkin shows this loss through a depressing personification, separated and detached tone, and the slow crumbling structure. The home is not yet a house because it is still filled with memories of the past, which it is desperately grasping onto. Those memories - the pictures, the cutlery, the music in the piano, and that vase, are the only things that remain.
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