Poetry Analysis Of 'My Father As A Poet'

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Poetry Analysis "Harlem" was written by Langsatn Hughes. This poem is focusing on the American-African neighborhood "Harlem" in New York City in mid-twenties while the society was filling with discriminations and racism. "My Father as A Guitar" was written by Martin Espada. In the poem, the speaker is comparing his father, who has a heart problem, with a guitar. "Charon 's Cosmology" was written by Charles Simic in 1977. This poem is mainly about a ferryman, whose job is to transfer souls of dead. These three poems have different themes, however, the speaker all used some literary devices to express their thoughts to readers. In "Harlem", the writer is using similes, metaphors and also diction techniques. First, the speaker said "What happens …show more content…

"The heart pills are dices in my father 's hand, gambler who needs cash by the first of the month" from here we can see that the writer is referring his father as a gambler, who is gambling with his health and the crucial reality that he has to work for rent. through comparing his father with a gambler is a great way to show the difficulties his father is going through. the second simile is "Heart hammering like the fist of a man at the door with an eviction notice" here the speaker indicating his father 's heart beating as an angry fist striking the door, which shows the father 's frustration: working under bad heart condition or evicting by the landlord. The last stanza has the father as a guitar being played in the son 's hands. Here the speaker is dreaming his father is guitar which infers the writer 's wish that his father could be a guitar so that he can be the player who decides how and what to do to protect the …show more content…

At first, the speaker is saying the ferryman only has one dim Latern to illuminate his way and he has a mountain of fresh dead body to deal with. "I 'd say by now he must be confused , as to which side is which, I 'd say it doesn 't matter, no one complains he 's got their pockets to go through" here the speaker is saying "it doesn 't matter", however, he didn’t clearly point out what does the pronoun "it" refer to, it allows readers to extend their imagination about the meaning of the pronoun. "Once in a long while a mirror, or a book which he throws" the "mirror" and "book" are symbolic, mirror can help people get a better understanding of who they are and book reflects the outside world, however, the ferryman is throws them away, which could cause readers wonder why is the ferryman throwing away something more important. For the last two lines "overboard into the dark river, swift and cold and deep" create an image of the river in readers ' mind. The writer is trying to convey that although the outside world is huge, fast pacing, and full of unknown dangers which makes human beings seemed insignificant and forgettable, we still need to keep doing our work as

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