Poem Analysis: Eating Alone By Li Young Lee

“You remember what you want to forget and you forget what you want to remember,” (McCarthy 12). With most aspects of life, the horrendous moments are the times that no one can erase. This applied to The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Towards the end of the novel when the son loses his father proves to be the most indelible moment with the assistance of the feelings experienced during that part. The son encounters a variety of emotions including loneliness, loss and hope. In enduring these complex emotions, this section was the most remarkable part.

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.

People have the need to always prove their self worth to everyone. In the poem The Leaving, Brigit Pegeen Kelly demonstrates how an individual’s environment and expectations of others encourages a person’s actions. In the poem the girl is so dedicated to her work that she’s willing to stay late even when her father doubts her. The speaker takes on the challenge to prove to her father that she can complete her task, and she successfully proves to him that she can do it. By proving her self worth to her father, the speaker faces new challenges along the way that test her own thoughts and decision making which ultimately determines the pursuit of her hard work.

Authors use literary devices so that the readers can connect and better understand the mood of the story. Bradbury in “The Pedestrian” uses a variety of lit devices to develop his mood of the story. Bradbury in "The Pedestrian" uses personification, simile, and imagery to develop the mood of loneliness so that the reader can see the dark world the character is living in.

The 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. Through shifting points of view, a purposeful structure, and settle choices in diction the author adds

The speaker opens the poem by describing his setting through a series of individual but connected natural images. The reader is immediately shown ripe red apples from Cape Ann in October, and one after another, the speaker uses similes to compare one part of nature to another. One aspect of an image is used to describe another image: the maple trees were colored like the red apples; the trees swayed like the sky, and the sky was filled flocks of geese, much like the golf course was covered with starlings. The connection of all the images in the first stanza would concentrate on the abundance of birds, which would become a cloud moving that reminded him of god creating and magnets moving iron fillings. He notices the flock of birds making dark “compressed and firm” spots like rocks. The speaker’s vivid comparison and description of objects on the golf course conveys the idea of unity in nature.

In the poem, A Story, Li-Young Lee uses specific diction and juxtaposition to reveal the affection the father and son have for each other as well as the fears behind a changing relationship. This complex relationship between the father and the son is depicted throughout the boy’s adjourn for a new story.

The 1970s were a rough year for African-Americans, still fighting for social and political rights in the United States. Consequently, women still did not receive equal rights. However, in 1972, “Congress approved the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the Constitution, which reads: ‘Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex’ (History.com Staff).” Out of the thirty-eight necessary states only twenty-two ratified it right away, it was relieving for the moment because the feminist advocates had been trying to be ratified since 1923. The First African-American woman elected into Congress was Shirley Chisholm. This moment opened doors for African-American women that they thought would never have a chance. Nevertheless, the poem Ego Tripping written by Nikki Giovanni dated back to 1972 where she expresses her power throughout the poem with the support of feminist statements. Giovanni reminds the audience of historical moments that lead up to the current conditions of the United States. Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why) was published with a bundle of poetry which is entitled My House, the book of poems had a common underlying idea that Giovanni is free to do what she pleases and live by her own set of rules (Masterpieces of American Literature Ed. Steven G. Kellman.)

In Li-Young Lee’s poem, Eating Alone, Lee uses many literary techniques such as imagery and tone to develop the speaker’s grief towards his father’s death. The poem is about a son who is mourning the loss of his father in which the fall brings back the memories of his father. When first reading this poem, it is very confusing and does not make much sense. Once the poem is analyzed, the reader can determine the distinction between life and death in the poem, where the speaker is missing the presence of their father.

Li-Young Lee’s poem “Eating Alone” expresses a son’s loneliness and love for his father that has passed away. He continuously connects the father to all that the speaker does whether it is lifeful or not. Lee does so in a way through imagery, tone, and irony.

How would you feel if someone could control what you were thinking? In “The Feed” written by M.T Anderson, everyone living in the community had a feed in their brain that was controlled by one large organization. Violet, the main character, suffers through a malfunction in her feed that changes the way she sees her society. Most people’s opinions can be changed when they have experienced the benefits and the disadvantages of something. Since Violet is aware of how life is with and without the feed, she becomes hesitant to believing that her community is being run efficiently. She realizes how her feed affects everything she does and how without it, she would be incapable. Based on her experiences, thoughts, and actions, I can infer that Violet

Dana Gioia’s poem, “Planting a Sequoia” is grievous yet beautiful, sombre story of a man planting a sequoia tree in the commemoration of his perished son. Sequoia trees have always been a symbol of wellness and safety due to their natural ability to withstand decay, the sturdy tree shows its significance to the speaker throughout the poem as a way to encapsulate and continue the short life of his infant. Gioia utilizes the elements of imagery and diction to portray an elegiac tone for the tragic death, yet also a sense of hope for the future of the tree. The poet also uses the theme of life through the unification of man and nature to show the speaker 's emotional state and eventual hopes for the newly planted tree. Lastly, the tree itself becomes a symbol for the deceased son as planting the Sequoia is a way to cope with the loss, showing the juxtaposition between life and death.

In “Nothing Gold Can Stay” by Robert Frost, it uses three main literary elements. The three main literary elements were Imagery, Alliteration, and Metaphors. They were used to show illustration, communication, and a dream deferred. The poem’s theme to me was also a dream deferred.

Poems are short meaningful pieces of literature that can be interpreted in multiple ways depending upon the reader at hand. That is what makes a poem unique compared to other literature pieces because in a poem the author tends to use figurative language to fulfill meaning behind their work. One poem “Love is a Sickness Full of Woes” by Samuel Daniel describes the pains of being lovesick. Love can either benefit us if nurtured and cared for, but if not tended to then let loose can ultimately hurt us. As to another poem “American Solitude” by Grace Schulman describes a life of solitude being most warming to the soul to ward off loneliness. To avoid the affect of feeling lovesick or unwanted, a life of solitude is a choice indeed. The two authors have two different aspects of life in how one should live to

Social isolation has become much more common in a society that constantly tries to stereotype us. The poems, “A Supermarket in California,” by Allen Ginsberg and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” by T.S. Eliot, display the way that loneliness is affecting people. In “A Supermarket in California” imagery is used heavily, while with “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” relies on personification to show the loneliness of isolation. Both poems use objects such as the lonely streets and night time to make the reader feel the isolation. In addition, they both use questions to get the readers thinking and feeling of how it is to be lonely. Eliot and Ginsberg both display the theme of how lonely it is to not be able to be yourself in a time or place it is not accepted.