Analysis Of Fish Out Of Water By Nikki Giovanni

Literary Analysis: Nikki Giovanni

By: Lalah Turner

Nikki Giovanni is a very expressive poet. Her writing is complex and sometimes hard to understand at first. She uses words to help her readers picture what she is saying. I think she does a great job of helping you get her point. I read several of Nikki Giovanni’s poems. I decided to analyze three of them. I chose ‘Poetry”, “I Am Glass’, and ”Fish Out of Water.” I found these three to be fantastic examples of Giovanni’s use of figurative and specific language, imagery, and vivid world. It seems to me that her poems almost come alive and force you to put yourself inside.

In the first poem “Poetry” Giovanni uses a lot of figurative language.

I found similes, metaphors, and personification. She explains that poetry can be anything. Using similes such as “Graceful as a fawn, gentle like a teardrop, and strong like the eye.” She expresses that a poet finds it so important to create that they often shut out their own lives in order to write. The metaphor “poetry is pure energy” is used to state how powerful it can be. Giovanni is basically saying in this poem that if you don’t get poetry then something is wrong with you because it is just life that the writer wants you to understand.

In the poem “I Am Glass” Giovanni uses glass to explain that people are weak and more than just what they have been through. The use of figurative language such as the metaphor ”I am glass” is used to explain that people are fragile and hurt by small things. Yet they change and adapt to the situation. Giovanni say “if you blow your breathe on me I can fog, then you can write your name,claim me.” My feeling is that she is the glass and there to be claimed by love “until the sun shines.” Which means until the love is no longer

there.
My last poem is Giovanni’s “A Fish Out of Water.” This was a good example of imagery and specific language. She is telling the story of a person that feels out of place and misunderstood. People don’t always understand people who are different. So they treat them badly. It makes you want to know how a situation will end before you get into it.
Nikki Giovanni is a powerful poet, She is able to inspire people with her poems. She makes readers understand what her writing is about with so much emotion. She forces you to think. She creates pictures and stories in your mind that go beyond the poem. I like to write and her poems make me want to be a better writer.