Kendrick Lamar's To Pip A Butterfly

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I structured my poem as a free-verse one, where it is not subject to a consistent rhyme, meter or rhythm scheme. Nor does it include much vivid imagery. What makes the poem is its message regarding the state-of-America, the mood and emotion I wished to present, and my use of language.

The first stanza begins with the lines “I remember you was conflicted, misusing your influence.” I pulled these lines for Kendrick Lamar’s poem from his album “To Pimp a Butterfly.” Through these lines, I wanted to set the scene for my poem to be one where I would be struggling in a time of conflict and contemplating the results of it. In this case, my "influence" is my socio-economic advantage in this world and my power to make a change. However, I am conflicted in that I believe I misused this influence. As the stanza progresses, I describe the weighing of this conflict on my self-worth and well-being. Through my "resentment that turned into deep depression," I express my sorrow through failing in misusing my influence. But that realization spawned an idea to "go running for answers." …show more content…

My international experience and socio-economic opportunity left me without that. I was guilty and wanted to make change. I contemplated whether or not I deserved to live in a life away from all those things. I was entering my own “war” of internal conflict through my problems of being a bystander. But in the end, I fought through my “war” and went “back to the city” to tell them the word that I found through my contemplation. The word was

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