Lisa Parker’s “Snapping Beans”, Regina Barreca’s “Nighttime Fires”, John Frederick Nims’ “Love Poem”, and John Donne’s “Song” all demonstrate excellent use of imagery in their writing. All of the authors did a very good job at illustrating how the use of imagery helps the reader understand what the author’s message is. However, some of the poems use different poetic devices and different tones. In Lisa Parker’s “Snapping Beans” and Regina Barreca’s “Nighttime Fires”, both poems display a good use of personification. However in John Donne’s “Song” and John Frederick Nims’ “Love Poem, they differ in the fact that the tone used in each poem contrasts from each other.
The poem “Snapping Beans” by Lisa Parker is about a girl who visits her grandmother. In the poem, the girl and the grandmother talk about their usual things, like how she is going in school. The girl responds with how school is going good, but she knows that her grandmother would not approve of her social circle and what they do and talk about. The narrator does an excellent job of using imagery and personification to help the reader understand on an emotional level of how the student may be feeling while sitting on the porch with her grandmother. One example of personification in this poem would be: “About the nights I cried into the familiar / heartsick panels of the quilt she made me,” (26-27). This use of personification indicates that the panels of the quilt are heartsick because the girl cries each night into her quilt because she misses her grandmother dearly. In Regina Barreca’s poem “Nighttime Fires, the narrator explains her complex view of her father. Imagery plays a big role in this poem because it vividly illustrates the girl’s impression of her father’s...
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...ictures for the reader. The similar use of personification in “Snapping Beans” by Lisa Parker and the use of diction and imagery in “Nighttime Fires” by Regina Barreca support how the use of different poetic devices aid in imagery. The contrasting tones of “Song” by John Donne and “Love Poem” by John Frederick Nims show how even though the poems have opposite tones of each other, that doesn’t mean the amount of imagery changes.
Works Cited
Parker, Lisa. "Snapping Beans." Literature To Go. 6th ed. Bostn: Bedford/St.Martin's,
2014. 338-39. Print.
Barreca, Regina. "Nighttime Fires." Literature To Go. 6th ed. Bostn: Bedford/St.Martin's,
2014. 353-54. Print.
Frederick Nims, John. "Love Poem." Literature To Go. 6th ed. Bostn: Bedford/St.Martin's,
2014. 358-59. Print.
Donne, John. "Song." Literature To Go. 6th ed. Bostn: Bedford/St.Martin's,
2014. 465-66. Print
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