Walter Dean Myers Poem Analysis

Songs are unique because not only are they poems, but they are musical, so they express much more emotion. Scotty McCreery’s song, “Five More Minutes,” is a great example of how metaphorical and sentimental a simple song can be. The song covers mundane events in the singer’s life, as well as impactful events, and relates them back to the same message; time goes by quickly, so cherish everything you have at the moment. Scotty McCreery recounts personal events, uses unique dialect, repeats key phrases, and uses metaphors to wonderfully convey the tone and message of his song. Most importantly, the artist connects with the audience on a personal level, which is unique and allows him to write in a simplistic manner.

In this poem, Ruth Belknap contrasted the perceived, romanticized pleasures of country life against its difficulties. I selected this document because I thought that it was interesting how she detailed the challenges of country life; she needed to constantly work and if she didn’t, she wouldn’t be able to provide for herself or for her family because they produced their own food and clothes. I found the verse “If with romantic steps I stray/Around the fields and meadows gay,/The grass, besprinkled with the dews,/Will wet my feet and rot my shoes” (28) to be especially interesting because even if there were pleasures of life in the country, she could not enjoy them because she was too preoccupied with her work and accomplishing what she needed

History has been said to be the key to the future. In the poem, “ The Lesson”, Billy Collins uses personification, a somber and remorseful tone, and symbolism to make sure the reader understands that history is ever-present and ever- important. The poems speaker is referred to as I and I borrows History’s coat, but History is very angry that I took the overcoat. The use of personification in, “ The Lesson”, further develops the figurative meaning of the poem.

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.

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.”

Letters to a Young Poet is a collection of letters written between two poets. One being the famous Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke and an aspiring young poet Franz Kappus. Kappus is a student at a military academy but contemplates whether or not he should pursue his career of being a poet. Kappas writes to Rilke seeking critiques on his previous works of art and advice on his decision. Rilke responds with a letter that is structured into three different sections.

Robert Pinsky Born in Long Branch, New Jersey October 20th, 1940, Robert Pinsky would become a renowned poet. His poetry career would take off post graduation from Rutgers University with a BA and later on receiving an MA and PhD in Philosophy from Stanford. Pinsky’s poetry would follow the symbolic movement, his most famous collection The Sounds of Poetry a perfect example. Pinsky is also known for his translations, most famously The Inferno of Dante. Elected Poet Laureate in 1997, he would serve two terms until 2000.

Wheatley 's societal position does not hinder her ability to express how she believes the powerful undergraduates should morally conduct themselves. At the beginning of the first stanza, Wheatley underlines how writing poetry is a central component of her being. " An intrinsic ardor" (Wheatley 1), or an internal fire, compels her to write, while mythological "muses" (Wheatley 2) guide her as she pours out her emotions onto the paper. Wheatley also proclaims that she left her native Africa not long ago (Wheatley 3). In effect, Wheatley assumes the position of a foreign woman in a new, mysterious land who relies on mythological creatures to guide her creativity.

Solitude At one point in anyone’s life, no matter how much friends ones have or how deep ones relationships with their love ones are. Loneliness is inevitable. Now, how anyone deal with it are different. As for Mark Strand, the poet, he developed this feeling of solitude and integrated it with in his poems, using it as a theme and represent it from three different perspectives in three of his poems: “Lines for the winner”, “Keeping things whole” and “The Remains.”

Langston Hughes is an African American Poet who is very closely connected to his culture and expresses his feelings very thoroughly through his poetry in a jazz style. Langston Hughes is a modern poet who ignore the classical style of writing poetry and instead, in favor of oral and improve traditions of the Black culture. In majority of Langston’s poetry, many of his audience seems to take away a very strong message that many can apply to themselves or to others or his poems gives you an educational background of what’s going on in the African American community right now. For example, Langston Hughes writes a poetry piece called Afro American Fragment, which gives you a great breakdown of what an everyday African American person goes through considering that their whole history is basically taken away from them. Langston seems to show his audience that in books we never hear much about what contributions a African American person has done except for being brought to America and being a slave.

Walter Dean Myers was a great author and inspiratory. He was born in Martinsburg, WV. When he was a child he would play basketball every chance he got. As he grew up he lived in many states such as, Manhattan, New Jersey, and Martinsburg. Also he has written over 20 books three of them are Monster, Bad Boy, and On A Clear Day.