Julio Noboa Planco Identity Essay

All throughout the summer homework assignments, I have stated that poems are messages that poets want to convey to the readers. One of my favorite poems in Springboard Unit 4 was, “Identity”, by Julio Noboa Polanco. I enjoyed this poem because it spoke of freedom being more important than admiration. In some ways admiration is good, for example looking up to someone, but admiration based on looks is one of the many impurities that humans have developed over the years thus, I would like to analyze “Identity” because of the message hidden discreetly behind a story.
I think that Polanco was trying to say that although you may not be beautiful, being free and feeling alive is more important than looking and smelling good. In stanza 19- 22, it states, “I’d rather smell of musty, green stench
than of sweet, fragrant lilac.
If I could stand

alone, strong and free,
I’d rather be a tall, ugly weed.”
I find this stanza, impactful because it clearly says that they would rather be free and poor than rich but captivated.

This is the stanza that sums up the whole moral of the poem in simple words.
One of the stanzas that I think of as very important is stanza 7-9,
“To have broken through the surface of stone,
to live, to feel exposed to the madness
of the vast, eternal sky.”
I think that the freedom that the poet is talking about is all of the drama that goes on in life, or all of the events that go wrong and turn into mishap, and being able to escape that as a poor person must be luxury.
Lastly there is the stanzas 1-3,
“Let them be as flowers
always watered, fed, guarded, admired,
but harnessed to a pot of dirt.”
Although rich people are always pampered and have anything and everything they want because of the amount of money they have, they are limited to the amount of decisions that they can make. For example a Prince and Princess is not allowed to choose who they are allowed to marry due to their class and their responsibilities, but they can get anything they want because they have the

money.
So therefore, I liked this poem because of the moral and the format, “Identity” is an amazing poem because of all of the wonderful ideas that flow in the poem while you read. I really admire Julio Noboa Polanco for his creativity and imagination. This poem really opened up my mind to all of the advantages and disadvantages that life has to bring, because life is not perfect and you can’t always have everything that you want.