Vincent Guilliano’s poem “Moment” contrasts the dull insignificance of things that last forever with the lustrous power of things that burn bright for only moments, then are gone. However, he does not use these objects and events literally, but instead as metaphors for life, and in doing so he asserts the speaker’s opinion that life is better lived if it is short and meaningful than if it is long and empty.
The speaker believes that his life would be meaningless if he does not change or influence the world in some way, a view which is reinforced by Guilliano’s use of diction in reference to different things and how they affect the world they are a part of. He compares a meaningful life to things of great power such as “lightning,” “thunder”
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As a result of this need to be remembered that the speaker feels, he would rather live for only a “moment” and do something great and memorable for the world than live forever like a “stone,” not doing anything productive or worthy of recognition as he slowly “erode[s] and become[s] [like] sand” as he is forgotten by the world. To be forgotten, in the speaker’s opinion, is to die, but to be remembered is to live forever in the history of the world and the memories of its inhabitants. Life, in his eyes, can either be like “lightning” or like a “stone.” When “lightning” strikes, it lasts for “less than a moment” but it forever leaves its mark on the world as it “rumbles” into the memories of those who experienced it. People talk about, revere, and fear “lightning” as something great and powerful, but no one cares about a “stone.” Stones seem to exist for “a million lifetimes,” but are forgotten and trampled under the feet of men as no one even gives a thought to their existence. Although a stone’s life seems to last forever, its existence is meaningless and it may as well not exist at all. This is the speaker’s attitude toward life - if he has no impact on the world and forever lives in a detached and isolated state, it would not make a difference if he simply ceased to exist. He dreads the dullness of life lived like a stone, but he similarly yearns to live a life like “lightning,” short in reality, but everlasting in the memories of those he touched. To live for a brief but bright “moment” is to live forever in the memory of the
Both awe-inspiring and indescribable is life, the defined “state of being” that historians and scholars alike have been trying to put into words ever since written language was first created. And in the words of one such intellectual, Joshua J. Marine, “Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful”. Essentially, he is comparing life to a bowl of soup. Without challenges or hardship into which we can put forth effort and show our potential, it becomes a dull and flavorless broth. But for characters in novels like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the difficulties and trials that we all must face can transfigure the mundane liquid mixture of existence into a vibrant and fulfilling gumbo. The protagonists of these works are two strong-willed and highly admirable women, who prevail in the face of overwhelming odds stacked in everyone’s favor but theirs. In their trying periods of isolation brought about by cold and unwelcoming peers, particularly men, they give their lives meaning by simply pushing forward, and living to tell the tale.
The death camp was a terrible place where people where killed. Hitler is who created the death camp for Jews. The death camp was used for extermination on Jews. This occurred on 1939 – 1945. The death camps were in the country of Europe. Hitler did all this because he didn’t like Jews and the religions. The book Night is a autobiography written by Elie Wiesel. The poem called First they came for the communist written by Martin Neimoller is a autobiography.
Poetry is a part of literature that writers used to inform, educate, warn, or entertain the society. Although the field has developed over the years, the authenticity of poetry remains in its ability to produce a meaning using metaphors and allusions. In most cases, poems are a puzzle that the reader has to solve by applying rhetoric analysis to extract the meaning. Accordingly, poems are interesting pieces that activate the mind and explore the reader’s critical and analytical skills. In the poem “There are Delicacies,” Earle Birney utilizes a figurative language to express the theme and perfect the poem. Specifically, the poem addresses the frangibility of the human life by equating it to the flimsy of a watch. Precisely, the poet argues that a human life is short, and, therefore, everyone should complete his duties in perfection because once he or she dies, the chance is unavailable forever.
For many people, the early hours of the morning can hold numerous possibilities from time for quiet reflections to beginning of the day observations to waking up and taking in the fresh air. In the instance of the poems “Five A.M.” and “Five Flights Up,” respective poets William Stafford and Elizabeth Bishop write of experiences similar to these. However, what lies different in their styles is the state of mind of the speakers. While Stafford’s speaker silently reflects on his walk at dawn from a philosophical view of facing the troubles that lie ahead in his day, Bishop’s speaker observes nature’s creations and their blissful well-being after the bad day had before and the impact these negative thoughts have on her psychological state in terms
I blame, in part, a major portion of humanity’s recently-developed inability to live in the moment on the rise of technology and personal communication devices (i.e. smartphones); one cannot spend an hour surfing the internet without seeing a meme depicting disappointed-looking elder family members surrounded by younger ones enthralled by their smartphones, tablets, etc. The same visual is easily spotted on a Saturday evening out, where individuals may be not living in the moment, but rather combing their social media pages for an even better, more exciting or enticing event to attend down the street. Jean-Paul Sartre writes “what fundamentally we desire to appropriate in an object is its being,” that is, life is what we make of it, and Orlean’s idea of an overly-anticipated, excessively built-up Saturday night causes one to dehumanize their experience and fail to live in the moment and truly enjoy and appreciate it. The existentialist would denounce Orlean’s intense expectations of Saturday night and its imposition on virtually everyone to enjoy it, and argue that the experience of Saturday night is relative to each
This darkly satiric poem is about cultural imperialism. Dawe uses an extended metaphor: the mother is America and the child represents a younger, developing nation, which is slowly being imbued with American value systems. The figure of a mother becomes synonymous with the United States. Even this most basic of human relationships has been perverted by the consumer culture. The poem begins with the seemingly positive statement of fact 'She loves him ...’. The punctuation however creates a feeling of unease, that all is not as it seems, that there is a subtext that qualifies this apparently natural emotional attachment. From the outset it is established that the child has no real choice, that he must accept the 'beneficence of that motherhood', that the nature of relationships will always be one where the more powerful figure exerts control over the less developed, weaker being. The verb 'beamed' suggests powerful sunlight, the emotional power of the dominant person: the mother. The stanza concludes with a rhetorical question, as if undeniably the child must accept the mother's gift of love. Dawe then moves on to examine the nature of that form of maternal love. The second stanza deals with the way that the mother comforts the child, 'Shoosh ... shoosh ... whenever a vague passing spasm of loss troubles him'. The alliterative description of her 'fat friendly features' suggests comfort and warmth. In this world pain is repressed, real emotion pacified, in order to maintain the illusion that the world is perfect. One must not question the wisdom of the omnipotent mother figure. The phrase 'She loves him...' is repeated. This action of loving is seen as protecting, insulating the child. In much the same way our consumer cultur...
"Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal [but] which the reader recognizes as his own." (Salvatore Quasimodo). There is something about the human spirit that causes us to rejoice in shared experience. We can connect on a deep level with our fellow man when we believe that somehow someone else understands us as they relate their own joys and hardships; and perhaps nowhere better is this relationship expressed than in that of the poet and his reader. For the current assignment I had the privilege (and challenge) of writing an imitation of William Shakespeare’s "Sonnet 87". This poem touched a place in my heart because I have actually given this sonnet to someone before as it then communicated my thoughts and feelings far better than I could. For this reason, Sonnet 87 was an easy choice for this project, although not quite so easy an undertaking as I endeavored to match Shakespeare’s structure and bring out his themes through similar word choice.
The imagery, parallel metaphors and character development enhances the readers understanding of the meaning of this short story; realizing Life is short. One’s life can be beautiful, fruitful and young, taking one step at a time, but in the blink of an eye or overnight one can realize that life has quickly, slipped passed and the days, hours, minutes that one has left on this earth are numbered and can have stagnating effects on one’s mental state. For realizing that Life is short, presents the inevitable end of Death, and one begins to question if their life has been meaningful or purposeful, and if it has not, leaves one in great
The world is changing and evolving at an astounding rate. Within the last one hundred years, the Western community has seen advances in technology and medicine that has improved the lifestyles and longevity of almost every individual. Within the last two hundred years, we have seen two World Wars, and countless disputes over false borders created by colonialists, slavery, and every horrid form of human suffering imaginable! Human lifestyles and cultures are changing every minute. While our grandparents and ancestors were growing-up, do you think that they ever imagined the world we live in today? What is to come is almost inconceivable to us now. In this world, the only thing we can be sure of is that everything will change. With all of these transformations happening, it is a wonder that a great poet may write words over one hundred years ago, that are still relevant in today’s modern world. It is also remarkable that their written words can tell us more about our present, than they did about our past. Is it just an illusion that our world is evolving, or do these great poets have the power to see into the future? In this brief essay, I will investigate the immortal characteristics of poetry written between 1794 and 1919. And, I will show that these classical poems can actually hold more relevance today, than they did in the year they were written. Along the way, we will pay close attention to the style of the poetry, and the strength of words and symbols used to intensify the poets’ revelations.
The poem On Girls Lending Pens that is written by Taylor Mali tells that a boy forgets to bring his pen for class, so he has to borrow one from a girl beside him. However, he does not expect that girl has too many pens to pick from. It seems that the girl cares too much about her stuff and makes the simplest thing more difficult to deal with. At the end, the boy decides that he would rather come unprepared than borrow a pen from the girl. It is a very humorous and rhymed poem. Through different poetic devices, it shows the theme of being prepared.
Did I Miss Anything? is a poem written by a Canadian poet and academic Tom Wayman. Being a teacher, he creates a piece of literature, where he considers the answers given by a teacher on one and the same question asked by a student, who frequently misses a class. So, there are two speakers present in it – a teacher and a student. The first one is fully presented in the poem and the second one exists only in the title of it. The speakers immediately place the reader in the appropriate setting, where the actions of a poem take place – a regular classroom. Moreover, the speakers unfolds the main theme of the poem – a hardship of being a teacher, the importance of education and laziness, indifference and careless attitudes of a student towards studying.
from a dying world. The life and pretensions of their world are becoming a thing of memory:
...e made up of moments which pass and become nothing. Yet through this shaft of nothings we drive onward with that miraculous vitality that creates our precarious habitations in the past and the future. So we live; a spirit broods and hovers over the continual death of time, the lost meaning, the unrecaptured moment, the unremembered face, until the final chop that ends all our moments and plunges that spirit back into the void from which it came. (p244)
..., Well-Lighted Place”, represent the opinions and views of one typical person, in one ordinary life. The theme of a world of nothingness is overwhelming to the human brain, and almost inconceivable, and everything we do in this life is simply designed to help us take our mind off of death; suicide is the ultimate escape from “despair” over “nothing” (494). Hemingway’s brilliant transitions in time explain how life eventually grows worse with age, and humans will succumb to suicide, drunkenness, or something comforting and safe, much like a clean, well-lighted cafe. Further, Hemingway has shown the world that man has created many bogus ways to cope with the insurmountable fear of nothingness, namely religion. People can try to kid their selves into feeling soulful, genuine, or meaningful, but there is no need to “fear for [the human] soul”, as it is non-existent.
Swimming through the river, like a red bolt of lightning, the salmon tries to find the place it was born at so it can spawn. It has learned this through the species’ trial and error, which is acquiring knowledge, one of the most important parts of a journey. As we’ve seen through many journeys, such as the poem by CP Cavafy “Ithaka”, and the migrations of animals like salmon, beluga whales, and horseshoe crabs, the journey is the most important thing out of an adventure. Although the destination still matters, the journey is where you gain all of your knowledge and your important items from.