On Not Shoplifting Louise Bogan's The Blue Estuaries

People become inspired from all sorts of unique things from a play or a quote to a book of poems. Julia Alvarez’s “On Not Shoplifting Louise Bogan’s The Blue Estuaries” conveys the speaker’s discoveries and the passion and inspiration they created through the use of tone, imagery, similes, and alliteration.

In the first and second stanzas, the speaker appears captivated by the discovery of a new genre and a new author. When the speaker discovers the poetry section amongst an assortment of meaningless gossip magazines and “reference tomes” they become enlightened and drawn to them. The line “no blurbs by the big boys on back” (line 3), utilizes alliteration to reveal the differences between what she is used to reading and the new book she had

found. Louise Bogan’s poetry was not well recognized and that drew the speaker to her writing.
In the third and fourth stanzas, the author uses imagery to depict the speaker’s sheer admiration as she read through Bogan’s newly discovered writing which revealed the tone throughout the poem as one of passion. The imagery of words “shattering an old silence”(line 26) and the “[leaning] in closer to the print” (line 27) portrays the speaker’s ardor towards the book of poems. These lines create the sensation of the speaker being overcome and exhilarated by the words as she drew nearer to the writing. She felt inspired by the words and explains how she could “almost feel the blue waters drawn into the top of [her] pen” (lines 8-30). She no longer felt a disconnect between her and her writing and she was no longer held back. “For a moment I lost my doubts, my girl’s voice, my coming late into this foreign alphabet” (lines 34-36). This scene conjures the image of someone who has felt out of place in this foreign language finally being free from all that held her back. This is a very strong image of what one small thing can do to change one’s life and inspire someone. The book of poems allowed her to finally discover her voice and break free from the confines she had experienced in the past. It was almost as if Bogan’s writing was calling to her and inspiring her word after word.
The speakers passion from the discovery of Bogan’s work and her own voice which resulted from her first discovery however shifted to a feeling of conflict and confusion.

The speaker illustrates her poor state and questions whether or not to shoplift the book to keep the work that has inspired her to unimaginable measures. This feeling is conveyed through the writing “I had no money, no one was looking./ The swan posed on the cover,/ their question-mark necks arced/ over the dark waters./ I was asking them what to do” (lines 40-44). This element of confusion strengthens the tone of passion and reveals how deeply the book has affected her. The moral battle the speaker goes through depicts the strong, positive, inspired feeling they wanted to hold on to; to “own [that] moment” (line38). Ultimately, the speaker replaced the novel which portrays her discovery of who she was and who she was capable of being. The simile: “I held the book closed before me/ as if it were something else,/ a mirror reflecting back/ someone I was becoming” (lines 46-49) convey’s her discovery of herself and the her will power to become a more disciplined individual. It also illustrates the strength she has found from the discovery of this book and the passion it

brought.
Through the use of alliteration, similes, tone, and imagery, Julia Alvarez depicts the speakers discoveries of poetry and Louise Bogan’s writing which aided in her discovery of who she was capable of becoming. With this discovery of herself, she uncovers a passion that she hadn't felt previously. She was able to let go of everything that held her back and was inspired to hold herself to a higher standard than before which was illuminated through the moral struggle she experienced on whether or not to shoplift Louise Bogan’s writing.