Mercy, a poetry collection of emotion, prose, and chronicles, was diligently written by Lucille Clifton through intricate depictions of personal and life experiences presented throughout her life. Clifton separates her collection into four distinct cycles, beginning her collection with the series of poems termed “last words,” which explores lingering memories and astutely described moments through elegies and valediction. Throughout this cycle of Clifton’s work, the final lines are imperative to their respective poem, bridging the metaphorical or literal stanzas with a thematic closure. Thus, to impose understandable interpretations of her complex diction, Clifton utilizes her closing lines within the section “last words” by conjoining her …show more content…
The free verse poem begins with a narrative of a woman who recalls her mother’s passing, fusing emotion with color, “there was a woman who hit her head and ever after she could see the sharp wing of blues and greens radiating from the body of her sister, her mother, her friends.” (Clifton, lines 1-5). Clifton elucidates her perspective on those around her by inserting the vision of blue and green hues swirling around her, using naturistic colors to symbolize their animated and lively existences. As Clifton maneuvers through her perception of her surroundings, she also depicts the before and after of her mother’s passing. Specifically, the first stanzas illuminate the fragility and beauty of those she loved, ultimately opposing her later reference to her mother lying in her casket, “behind her sewn eyes there were hints of purple and crimson and gold” (Clifton, lines 15-16). As before, Clifton describes the active spirit of her friends and family, now Clifton eminently paints her mother in a state of
This essay is anchored on the goal of looking closer and scrutinizing the said poem. It is divided into subheadings for the discussion of the analysis of each of the poem’s stanzas.
The poem is written in the style of free verse. The poet chooses not to separate the poem into stanzas, but only by punctuation. There is no rhyme scheme or individual rhyme present in the poem. The poems structure creates a personal feel for the reader. The reader can personally experience what the narrator is feeling while she experiences stereotyping.
The readers are apt to feel confused in the contrasting ways the woman in this poem has been depicted. The lady described in the poem leads to contrasting lives during the day and night. She is a normal girl in her Cadillac in the day while in her pink Mustang she is a prostitute driving on highways in the night. In the poem the imagery of body recurs frequently as “moving in the dust” and “every time she is touched”. The reference to woman’s body could possibly be the metaphor for the derogatory ways women’s labor, especially the physical labor is represented. The contrast between day and night possibly highlights the two contrasting ways the women are represented in society.
The speaker begins the poem an ethereal tone masking the violent nature of her subject matter. The poem is set in the Elysian Fields, a paradise where the souls of the heroic and virtuous were sent (cite). Through her use of the words “dreamed”, “sweet women”, “blossoms” and
The interpretations of what comes after death may vary greatly across literature, but one component remains constant: there will always be movement. In her collection Native Guard, Natasha Trethewey discusses the significance, permanence and meaning of death often. The topic is intimate and personal in her life, and inescapable in the general human experience. Part I of Native Guard hosts many of the most personal poems in the collection, and those very closely related to the death of Trethewey’s mother, and the exit of her mother’s presence from her life. In “Graveyard Blues”, Trethewey examines the definition of “home” as a place of lament, in contrast to the comforting meaning in the epitaph beginning Part I, and the significance
In the poem’s opening lines, she begins her day occupying the harried mother role, and with “too much to do,” (2) expresses her struggle to balance priorities. After saying goodbye to her children, and rushing out the door, she transitions from one role to the next, as well as, one emotion to another. As the day proceeds, when reflecting on her life choices, she wonders “what she might have been as a mother” (23), fantasizing about being around, experiencing more of her children's development and daily life. By deciding to pursue her current situation, she must entrust her children’s wellbeing to another, rather than herself, and as she “feels the quick stab […]” (36) she experiences flashes of guilt. However, knowing she has happy and well cared for children, in spite of it all, creates recognition of the situation’s
Although the little girl doesn’t listen to the mother the first time she eventually listens in the end. For example, in stanzas 1-4, the little girl asks if she can go to the Freedom March not once, but twice even after her mother had already denied her the first time. These stanzas show how the daughter is a little disobedient at first, but then is able to respect her mother’s wishes. In stanzas 5 and 6, as the little girl is getting ready the mother is happy and smiling because she knows that her little girl is going to be safe, or so she thinks. By these stanzas the reader is able to tell how happy the mother was because she thought her daughter would be safe by listening to her and not going to the March. The last two stanzas, 7 and 8, show that the mother senses something is wrong, she runs to the church to find nothing, but her daughter’s shoe. At this moment she realizes that her baby is gone. These stanzas symbolize that even though her daughter listened to her she still wasn’t safe and is now dead. The Shoe symbolizes the loss the mother is going through and her loss of hope as well. This poem shows how elastic the bond between the daughter and her mother is because the daughter respected her mother’s wish by not going to the March and although the daughter is now dead her mother will always have her in her heart. By her having her
The poem says that "since feeling is first" (line 1) the one who pays attention to the meaning of things will never truly embrace. The poem states that it is better to be a fool, or to live by emotions while one is young. The narrator declares that his "blood approves" (line 7) showing that his heart approves of living by feeling, and that the fate of feeling enjoyment is better than one of "wisdom" (line 9) or learning. He tells his "lady" (line 10) not to cry, showing that he is speaking to her. He believes that she can make him feel better than anything he could think of, because her "eyelids" (line 12) say that they are "for each other" (line 13). Then, after all she's said and thought, his "lady" forgets the seriousness of thought and leans into the narrator's arms because life is not a "paragraph" (line 15), meaning that life is brief. The last line in the poem is a statement which means that death is no small thi...
...sed society with religious overtones throughout the poem, as though religion and God are placing pressure on her. The is a very deep poem that can be taken in may ways depending on the readers stature yet one thing is certain; this poem speaks on Woman’s Identity.
The poem becomes personal on line 10 when she uses the first person and says “I lost my mother’s watch”. She is letting the reader know what she has lost in reality. Then she gets sidetracked to mention other things she has lost; she then mentions other things she has lost of much more importance such as houses, continents, realms, and cities, but then again mentions it was not so hard to lose those things. But in the end, mention the loss that really matters. She remembers the qualities of the lover she lost.
In the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Shelley created many characters with a lot of depth. There are two ways to characterize a character in a story: one is called direct, in which the author has either a character or a narrator in the story talk about the character in question, as she demonstrated when she had Dr. Frankenstein talk of Elizabeth: “She was docile and good tempered, yet gay and playful as a summer insect” (20). When characters describe other characters like that, we can also deduce how the speaker feels about the person he’s speaking about, which is the other type of characterization: indirect. This form of characterization urges the reader to deduce for themselves what a character is like by analyzing the characters thoughts,
At this point, the speaker transitions from loving the garden to missing her beloved and wishing he was in the garden with her. The speaker's choice of imagery to describe her calmness, in the beginning, informed the reader that she was peaceful. On the other hand, the use of imagery near the end of the poem informs the reader that the speaker misses her partner. She explains her desire to watch her body glisten in the light and bathe in the
The first thought that encroaches upon the woman's daydreams and darkens the atmosphere is that of a solemn "procession of the dead" to Palestine. Her interaction with the procession is interesting because it symbolizes the journey she is making in her mind and sets the tone for later religious questioning in the poem.
The poem demonstrates the two side of her upbringing wherein she is clearly acquainted with classical allusions and poetical devises that might have been strange to other puritans. It also reflects the conventions that she defies in trying to balance the role of women in puritan society while writing, and even publishing, poetry. This is something that is set up in almost defiance of other’s expectations.
Losing a loved one is one of the hardest experiences every person must go through. The experience does not end with the loss though, but begins with it. The loss of a dear person leads those left behind into a downward spiral of emotions and memories. A poem entitled “Lucy Gray” by William Wordsworth focuses on that loss and the emotions that follow it. By reading the poem one can objectively experience both the grief that Lucy Gray’s death brings on but also her parents’ acceptance of her death.