In this collection of poetry Tony Hoagland masterfully describes the American culture with casual language and humor in several poems like, “Poor Britney Spears," In Praise of Their Divorce, and My Father’s Vocabulary. These poems are well composed and have good imagery. First, Hoagland characterizes American culture with the poem “Poor Britney Spears,” which uses a comical title that blends in nicely with the first couplet, “is not a sentence I expected / to utter in this lifetime”, while using word choice that is simple yet effective. Which leads to the subject of the poem, Britney Spears a celebrity whose rise and demise, most young adults/teenagers are familiar with therefore, allowing the reader to connect easily with the main idea of the poem. Which is that people find …show more content…
However, famous people seem people to embrace “the mainstream dream machine” after all this is American culture and were would we be without our “coliseum / full of blinding lights and tigers”, another powerful that helps depict how we have become a modern day Rome. The second poem being analyzed is In Praise of Their Divorce, and the main idea is that divorce could be a good a thing, even though it is frowned upon in todays society. Divorce is becoming more widespread throughout American culture and Hoagland uses metaphors and similes to help illustrate this image. For example, in the second stanza Hoagland wrote, “that man and that woman setting of in different directions, / like pilgrims in a proverb”, here the use of alliteration is in “different directions” and “pilgrims in a proverb”, while line 4 is also a simile. Hoagland also alludes to marriage being like an earthquake by using a hyperbole when he writes in line 10 “moving the plates of earth apart”
In the first stanza, “one leaned on the other as if to throw her down” symbolism has been used to show the intensity of the embrace between the two. In stanza two, “and finally almost uprooted him” symbolism has been used to show how much the female dominates in this relationship. “He was thin, dry, insecure one” this symbolized that the male did not have much power nor say in the relationship.
With the coming of the new century America under goes a change led by many different events. The collection of poems written in Lee Masters book Spoon River Anthology portrays the typical small town at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. Show the different social, economical, and political trend and influences throughout the United States.
Principal themes in the poem consist of consumerism, capitalism, and most importantly greed. The poem described the journey of the poet as he went--goes through an implied spiritual transformation starting with getting annoyed with one of his students wanting to yell at him “how full of shit” he is, after that he recalled his dream, after dowsing off, he recalled something else a poem by Karl Marx a major communist. “I was listening to cries of the past when I should have been listening to the cries of the future,” after the fact, he came to an understanding with the student while imagining the mediforeical nightmare. Grouping themes together there are dreams, nightmares, waking life, dream life, sleeping, and clarity exactly, and being aware that the person is dreaming. When Hoagland references people drowning in the river, it could be compared to people working across seas in different countries, manufacturing goods for the average American while the workers live in harsh environments, but no one thinks of that when running around in new Nike shoes. The “you” in the pleasure boat is American people or America frankly, or even the ideals of consumerism were the normal person needs a new IPhone ever year when it is released. In the poets dream when he talks about stabbing his father and “Ben Fra...
Poems are forms of communication that give an applicable view of the past, present and future events. Reading the poem titled “America”, written by Richard Blanco brought me memories from my childhood in my parent’s house and also what is happening now in my house as a parent. The poem explains how one person doesn’t have all the knowledge about something. It also, describes the daily life struggles I experienced during my childhood, when my parent 's and I moved from our hometown to live in another town becuase of their work and it brings to light the conflict of cultures I and my children are going through since we moved to United State of America .
In her poem entitled “The Poet with His Face in His Hands,” Mary Oliver utilizes the voice of her work’s speaker to dismiss and belittle those poets who focus on their own misery in their writings. Although the poem models itself a scolding, Oliver wrote the work as a poem with the purpose of delivering an argument against the usage of depressing, personal subject matters for poetry. Oliver’s intention is to dissuade her fellow poets from promoting misery and personal mistakes in their works, and she accomplishes this task through her speaker’s diction and tone, the imagery, setting, and mood created within the content of the poem itself, and the incorporation of such persuasive structures as enjambment and juxtaposition to bolster the poem’s
The female, adolescent speaker helps the audience realize the prejudice that is present in a “melting-pot” neighborhood in Queens during the year 1983. With the setting placed in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, the poem allows the audience to examine the experience of a young immigrant girl, and the inequality that is present during this time. Julia Alvarez in “Queens, 1963” employs poetic tools such as diction, figurative language, and irony to teach the reader that even though America is a place founded upon people who were strangers to the land, it is now home to immigrants to claim intolerance for other foreigners, despite the roots of America’s founding.
Influenced by the style of “plainspoken English” utilized by Phillip Larkin (“Deborah Garrison”), Deborah Garrison writes what she knows, with seemingly simple language, and incorporating aspects of her life into her poetry. As a working mother, the narrator of Garrison’s, “Sestina for the Working Mother” provides insight for the readers regarding inner thoughts and emotions she experiences in her everyday life. Performing the daily circus act of balancing work and motherhood, she, daydreams of how life might be and struggles with guilt, before ultimately realizing her chosen path is what it right for her and her family.
The poem contains the central idea that many of these children never understood what home really means. In Native American culture the people venerate earth and it is referred to as mother nature which we see in the poem. The rails cut right through their home but they don’t view them like the average person. They view the tracks as if they are scars across mother earths face and her face is the Native American’s homeland. She is scarred for eternity but she is perfect in their dreams. This symbolism is ironic because the children try to reach home using the railroad that ruined natural life for them and many other Native Americans. In the second stanza the speaker says “The worn-down welts of ancient punishments lead back and fourth” (15-16). Which can be talking about the marks on the children’s bodies after getting caught while running away. But the “word-down welts” can also symbolize the welts that were put on mother nature throughout history. The last five lines of the poem sums up the symbol of hope through their memories and dreams. The last line of the poem says, “the spines of names and leaves.” (20-24). The “spines” symbolize the physical strength of the children and their ability to maintain hope individually “names”, and for their tribe
In this poem, there is a young woman and her loving mother discussing their heritage through their matrilineal side. The poem itself begins with what she will inherit from each family member starting with her mother. After discussing what she will inherit from each of her family members, the final lines of the poem reflect back to her mother in which she gave her advice on constantly moving and never having a home to call hers. For example, the woman describes how her father will give her “his brown eyes” (Line 7) and how her mother advised her to eat raw deer (Line 40). Perhaps the reader is suggesting that she is the only survivor of a tragedy and it is her heritage that keeps her going to keep safe. In the first two lines of the poem, she explains how the young woman will be taking the lines of her mother’s (Lines 1-2). This demonstrates further that she is physically worried about her features and emotionally worried about taking on the lineage of her heritage. Later, she remembered the years of when her mother baked the most wonderful food and did not want to forget the “smell of baking bread [that warmed] fined hairs in my nostrils” (Lines 3-4). Perhaps the young woman implies that she is restrained through her heritage to effectively move forward and become who she would like to be. When reading this poem, Native American heritage is an apparent theme through the lifestyle examples, the fact lineage is passed through woman, and problems Native Americans had faced while trying to be conquested by Americans. Overall, this poem portrays a confined, young woman trying to overcome her current obstacles in life by accepting her heritage and pursuing through her
It also sounds a little condescending. The author casts judgment on the people who do not feel or question anything in life. Hoagland paints a depressing picture of an economically poor society where swimming pools are empty and swings are rusty and broken. These examples bring to mind a society where no one cares or nobody can afford to repair what is broken. The poem’s use of imagery is potent and depressing. We can all imagine that empty swimming pool with its plaster peeling because it has sat empty for so long and the sound the broken swing makes as it drags the chain on the ground. The self absorbed and emotionally unattached people don’t appreciate the lost opportunity of the broken swing and the empty pool. There is six year old boy somewhere out there who will never get to pump his feet back and forth to soar on that swing. He will never get to say “mommy push me higher, go faster.” The people walking past the playground ignore the swing. It is invisible. What is not invisible is the infusion of modern pop culture as evidenced by the author’s
.... With the correct sum, the loud and rushing “giant waterfalls” that characterized the parent-child relationship in the first stanza are now quiet “streams” and “sweet pools”. In addition, the “old metal cup…that nobody could break” is representative of their unbreakable family bond of love. Through moments of chaos and divergence, this loving bond prevails. (Nye, Naomi Shihab)
The imagery portrayed in the first half of the story is solemn, melancholy and grim depicting the protagonist, Mrs. Mallard, is effortlessly flabbergasted at the harsh news of her husband, Brently Mallard’s disastrous death. In hearing the news of Brently’s premature death, Mrs. Mallard immediately accepts his death and is overcome with grief and leaves to her room unaccompanied. It is in her room, which she peers through the window contemplating on the recent news that she has received, when there is an overall shift to the
The couples share a certain amount of love for each other but the disconnection was stronger. The protagonist’s disconnection is evident because her husband treats her like a little girl instead of a wife when he takes her “ …in her arms and called [her] a blessed little goose” (p121). The Mallard’s disconnection is also evident because her husband’s “face that had never looked save with love upon her, fixed and gray and dead” (p 15). This is not the emotion a wife wants to feel from her husband.
To begin, the first symbolic meaning one can interpret from the window is when Mrs. Mallard gazes out over the trees and gets lost in the little specks of sunshine peering through the cloud-covered sky. This can be seen as a sign is freedom, and in a sense she can fly away like a bird. Marriages in 1894 were not like they are today, most marriages were arranged by the families, and the wife was expected to be the
Marriage was not kind to Mrs. Mallard, her life was dull and not worth living, her face showed the years of repression. If she did love this man, why was marriage so harmful to her? Marriage was a prison for her