Thomas Lux is very skilled in the use of enjambment in his poem “A Little Tooth ((Lux, 1989, pp.618)”. The effect of Lux choosing to break the lines of the poem “A Little Tooth” where he did results in a poem that is hard to follow the first few times it is read, and it is difficult to predict where it is going or where it is going to finish. At the enjambment break in this line, “... then she wants some meat / directly from the bone (lines 2-3, pp.618) …”, the sentence picks up and continues from the speaker’s baby getting her teeth and eating meat. The next line, “… she'll fall / in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet/talker (lines 4-5, pp.618) ...”, makes a jump from being a toddler, learning words, and falling to being a young adult falling …show more content…
624)” is thought to be about life choices and which path you choose to take, except this poem can simultaneously have deeper philosophical meanings concerning free will and choice. Take the first lines, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, / And sorry I could not travel both (lines 1-2, pp. 624)…”, here Frost puts the speaker on a man-made road in a wooded, or nature made setting show that even if you are alone and make your choice, you are still following a road that someone has already taken before and will be taking again, but the choice of which to take is still yours to make. The speaker also shows remorse for not being able to take both roads. Does that mean that he wants to be able to take both roads simultaneously, or does he want to return and take the road later? He is remorseful that he cannot see the results that come from his choice of traveling each road. The next lines, “… long I stood / And looked down one as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth / Then took the other, as just as fair / And having perhaps the better claim, / Because it was grassy and wanted wear; (lines 3-8, pp. 624)…”, shows that Frost had his speaker take the road that “was grassy and wanted wear ” as a way to say that you are strong and you are able to make your way through. Although, Robert Frost knew that you could never really go back to the beginning of your journey, to a crossroads, or go back at all there was wishful …show more content…
Attempting to elicit sympathy from the reader, Suárez uses imagery and descriptive phrases. In the lines, “… --I understood / by the age of twelve what it meant to be unwanted, exiled, (lines 6-7, pp. 679-680) …”, Suárez uses the image of a twelve-year-old kid who is sad, unwanted and alone to draw sympathy towards immigrants. This image makes me sad because in recent years there are many people displaced due to tragedies all over the world. When the speaker says, “… you move from one country to another where nobody / wants you, nobody knows you, and I sat in front of the TV, (lines 8-9, pp. 679-680) …”, I can see myself sitting alone in the tree when I was eight and did not know anyone since my mother and father had just divorced and moved from Mississippi to Tennessee; the memory brings back the fear, the pain, and the hurt from that time in my life. Another descriptive phrase used by Suárez that makes me feel pain and sympathy for a child feeling alone and rejected, “… I screamed back, this victory-holler from one so rejected / and cursed to another (lines 12-13, pp. 679-680).” And finally, when Suárez has the speaker comparing themselves destroying his room to Godzilla destroying Tokyo, I can relate to how the speaker feels in wanting to vent my frustration at not being in control of anything in my life when I was a
Throughout the poem “Sometimes Mysteriously” the author, Luis Omar Salinas, utilizes a variety of poetic techniques, especially figurative language, to reveal the speaker's thoughts on the topic of loneliness. In the beginning of the text, Salinas uses personification to put emphasis on the speaker’s loneliness. Moreover, to build on the speaker being lonely, Salinas has a distinct solemn tone throughout the poem, to show the toll loneliness is taking on the speaker. Finally, Salinas conveys his theme by shifting the tone and attitude of the speaker from pessimistic and gloomy to optimistic. The change in the reader's tone helps show that it took courage to face the speaker’s loneliness and this courage is what resulted in the speaker’s happiness.
The fact that he “talks to himself,” instead of interacting with others in a city of millions where, in contrast, just around him “a couple embraces by an iron railing / she laughs and asks something,” conveys a sense of idleness (Paz 1). However, despite the fact that the old man is still immobile and inanimate in opposition to the vibrant Mexico City in which he lives, he is the one who is “alive in the middle of the night” (Paz 1). The poem conveys the notion of “present” through the motifs of time and stillness: “There is another time within time / still. / without past or future / only alive / like the old man on the bench / indivisible identical perpetual,” says the speaker near the end of the poem (Paz 6).
The poem is set in the fall when the leaves are changing colors and beginning to cover the ground. The speaker of the poem is faced with an unfamiliar fork in the road and is forced to decide which direction he or she must go. As the speaker is deliberating, he is “sorry” he cannot just travel both and it appears to be because the speaker has a fear of picking the wrong one (Frost 2). Although he “looked down one as far as I could” there was no seeing the end (4). Just like in a life, it is possible to have an idea of what will happen and there is no telling which choices will turn out beneficial and which will not. The speaker knows that although the paths are similar the outcome of picking the wrong one could be life changing. Even though he is upset he must trust in himself to know which one would be best for him in the long run.
In the second stanza, Frost lets the reader know that the traveler has chosen to take the path less traveled by: "Then took the other, just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim." The path that the speaker chose to travel down was obviously not for everyone, hence “the road less traveled by." The fact that the traveler took this path over the more popular, secure one indicates the type of personality he has. He does not feel the need to follow the crowd but rather to do more of what has never been done before.
Virgil Suarez’s poem “Isla” is based off the poet’s personal immigration experience. Born in Cuba, Suarez moved to the United States at age 12. He became college educated, a writer, and a professor (Poetry Foundation, 2018). Suarez is well known for utilizing allegory in his poems to include family members, friends, and famous characters, both real and make-believe (Poetry Foundation, 2018). In his poem “Isla”, Suarez effectively uses allegory, in which he uses both his mother and the famous, love him or hate him creature, Godzilla. As this poem describes Suarez’s immigration from Cuba to America, allegory is fitting because how effective they are at explaining a voyage or dangerous expedition (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012). Specifically, allegory, is a method used to deliver a thought “…by using people, places, or things to stand for abstract ideas” (Kirszner & Mandell, 2012, p. 680). A
Frost realizes that had he taken the other road he would not be where he is today. He was adventurous and choose the road that had been traveled the least recently and that one decision changed his life
In this poem, Frost illustrates that every person has his own opinion. He states “Then took the other, just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim” (line 6-7). What make it better was “it was grassy and wanted wear” (line 8). It was something that was obviously not for everyone because it seems that the other people take the more popular one. “And both that morning equally lay/ In leaves no step had trodden black” (line 11). No one had yet to pass by on this road since the leaves have fallen. “I kept the first for another day” (line 13). The desire to travel down both paths is expressed and is not unusual, but “knowing how way leads onto way” (line 14). The speaker of this poem realizes that the decision is not just a temporary one, and he “doubted if I should ever come back”
David Wyatt writes, "Nowhere in Frost is the tension between surprise and anticipation, wayward experience and the form into which it is cast or forecast, more acute than in 'The Road Not Taken'" (129). As the poem is read, one cannot help but be pulled into the questions of which road will be chosen, how they differ, and what will become of the traveler. Perhaps some hope to find guidance for their own journeys by seeking answers in Frost's work. According to Michael Meyer, "The speaker's reflections about his choice are as central to an understanding of the poem as the choice itself." (97) Frost himself admits, "it's a tricky poem, very tricky." (Pack 10)
In the first stanza, the protagonist is merely walking in the woods when he stumbles across an alternate path. Using the first person point of view, Frost depicts a clear picture of yellow woods and a character that has a choice to make as he reaches the conflict in the story and comes across a fork in the road. As the character in the story examines the best road to travel he wishes he could take both roads. In the second stanza, the character realizes that both roads appear equal, and he will only reflect later on the decision he made as the road less traveled.
Life is full of obstacles that people must overcome in order to continue. Garcia Lorca uses intense images such as watching preserved butterflies come back to life and where the mummified hand of a boy lies. His use of surrealistic events helps the reader understand Lorca’s emphasis on the brutality and disgusting outlook of life. The struggle in life to survive is a major component i...
The two roads in the poem relate to various paths one might be faced with in life. One path “bent in the undergrowth” (5) which means it had taken many times. However, the other path “was grassy and wanted wear” (8). This is the path in one’s life, which seems “unpopular” at the time. Not many people choose the path that is not typically chosen by others. This is what Frost is doing in his poem as he uses these solid metaphors: challenging his readers to “go against the flow” as the man did.
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler” (Page 756 Stanza 1). This is the beginning of an iambic tetrameter by Robert Frost in which he expresses the thoughts of the speaker as they come to a fork in the road. The speaker faces a dilemma of deciding which path to take. Frost uses a closed form with a rhyme scheme of “ABAAB.” The speaker reaching the fork in the road is symbolism for a particular decision that he must make in life. The first stanza is setting up the situation in which the speaker must observe both choices and make a decision and stick with it. This poem allows the reader to use their imagination and is also relatable in everyone’s everyday lives. In “The Road Not Taken,” Robert Frost uses a good rhyme scheme, description, and symbolism to describe an important life decision as well as show the thoughts of the speaker as he makes this decision.
The main theme of the poem that Frost attempts to convey is how important the decisions that one makes can be, and how they affect one’s future. In lines 2-3, he expresses the emotions of doubt and confusion by saying, “And sorry I could not travel/ And be one traveler, long I stood”, which explains how the speaker contemplated their decision of which road to take. In the closing, line 20 of the poem further reestablishes the theme when it states, “that has made all the difference”, meaning that making the decision of which road to take for themselves is the important key for a successful future. Frost helps to express this theme by using symbolism to portray a road as one’s journey of life. Using symbolism, Frost suggests that the speaker of this poem is taking the harder of the two roads presented before them, because the road the speaker chooses, “leaves no step had trodden black” (12...
One of Robert Frost’s most well known poems is The Road Not Taken. Frost had mentioned numerous times that it was a “tricky- very tricky” poem (Grimes). This can be examined in the structure of the poem, the symbolism, and the diction. The simple language he uses in the poem reveals the common relevance of the poem to the people. People have to go about making choices each and every day of their lives. However, sometimes we come to a cross-road in our lives that can be life changing that is what the sentence structure reveals to us (Mcintyre). He uses common words but in a way that is unclear to the reader. For example the opening line of the poem is “two roads diverged in a yellow wood” (Frost, Robert. “1.”). The reader is not sure what is meant by yellow woods. It may mean the onset of fall or even the coming of spring. The season could relate to the speakers stage in life. It may mean this is their youth and they have to make a decision that will plan out the rest of their life, such as I am about what college to attend. Or is it indicating he has reached his mid-life, the fall, and is now presented with opportunity to change his...
The poem is structured so that both the opening and end of the poem strike the confronting truth of the slums, such as “Nightfall comes like a dreaded disease seeping through pores” and “he barks like a rabid dog...thirsty for my blood”. The middle section the poem establishes the dangerous and brutal experiences through comments such as, “I am the victim” and “marauding beast let loose… from his cage of