was found guilty and hanged (Dieters, 2012). Seven years later, Fitzpatrick’s former roommate confessed to the murder on his deathbed. Residents of Detroit were outraged that an innocent man had been put to death. Then, two years following Fitzpatrick’s execution, another Detroit resident, Stephen Simmons, was tried and convicted of killing his pregnant wife during a drunken rage. His execution was made into an event resembling a carnival, complete with a band, local merchants selling their goods, and a seating section for spectators.. When asked if he had any last words, Simmons recited a poem. His “appeal to the heavens” shocked witnesses. The execution was called “cruel and vindictive” by onlookers. The result of these two cases was an
almost universal rejection of the death penalty and when the state constitution was rewritten in 1846, a constitutional abolition of the death penalty was included.
Currently in the United States, many of us are afraid of the future. There have been many recent events that have stirred up fear in this country, especially tensions regarding human rights. In Carolyn Forché’s “The Colonel,” the speaker tells us her story of when she had to deal with the mistreatment of others. The speaker is telling us her story of meeting the colonel to show us the horrible things that have happened in the fight for justice and to encourage us to speak up. She tells us this story because she does not want others to end up the way that the ears did. The speaker wants us to stay strong and fight for justice when we begin to live in a state of constant fear.
On the night of November 28th 1976, 28-year-old Randall Adams was hitchhiking on a Dallas road when 16-year-old David Harris picked him up. Harris, a runaway from Texas had stolen the car along with his father’s shotgun. They spent the day together and that night went to a drive-in movie The Swinging Chandeliers. Later that same evening officer Robert Wood was shot and killed when he pulled a car matching the exact description as Harris’s over. Two witnesses-including Harris, named Adams as the murderer. Adams received a death penalty sentence that in 1979 that later was reduced to life in prison. It was early in the 1980’s when director Errol Morris happened upon Adams’s court transcripts whilst shooting a different documentary about a Dallas psychiatrist who was frequently consulted in death row cases. Convinced of Adams innocence and the false accusations made against him Morris began making a film on the subject.
At this point, the speaker's newfound empathy toward the killer prompts his diatribe about American support of capital punishment. He begins with a hypothetical portrayal of an audience chaotically discussing the meaning of the word "kill," each person exclaiming "how they spell it" and "what it means to them." Subsequently, he recounts a story about insensitive reporters at a hanging, followed by a claim that "we throw killers in one grave / and victims in another. We form sides / and have two separate feasts." While the speaker may seem to be utilizing the description of the audience and the story of the reporters in order to denounce the mindset of his peers, he is in fact condemning his own former mentality. By denying five times that he is a witness, the speaker avoids the guilt that results from involvement in the death of another man. Through his repeated use of the phrase "I am not a witness," he essentially enables and catalyzes the execution of the killer, dismissing his humanity and conforming to the opinion that he deserves to be killed; however, once the speaker recognizes his fault and his conformity to this mindset, the tone of the poem suddenly shifts. The speaker's empathy for the killer reaches its maximum when he fully understands the pain of the condemned and finally sees the killer as his equal, which prompts his own admission of guilt and prior indifference: "I am a
The crime he committed was terrible and obviously something that could only be done with someone who lacks any good intentions. His behavior during the his trial also showed the extent of his maliciousness. He half-heartedly attempted to defend himself by claiming the prosecutors were using false evidence and that, according the records of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, “Nobles concludes that he was denied the fundamentally fair and impartial trial guaranteed him by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment”. He put very little effort into defending himself during the trial and was quickly sentenced to death. In the early years of his time in prison he was far from the ideal prisoner. Earle presents how “He once broke away from guards while returning to his cell from the exercise yard and climbed the exposed pipes and bars in the cell block, kicking down television sets suspended outside on the bottom tier.” and on another occasion he cut himself just so he could hit an officer while they were attending to him before he passed out. This kind of behavior was completely eradicated long before he was executed, procuring him the respect of the prison
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...
Analysis of Leroi Jones' A Poem Some People Will Have To Understand There is an implied threat in "A Poem Some People Will Have To Understand" by Leroi Jones. Ostensibly, there is no intimidation. The poem is confessional, even reflective; the theme is one of mutability and change. However, there is something frightening and ominous in Jones1 vision, which he creates through attention to word choice and structure. Jones' warning is immediately evident in the title through his manipulation of words.
According to my perspective of the poem “The Snowman” my ideas are in concordance to David Perkins. The entire poem is a metaphor for having a mind that entertains nothingness. The snowman represents the author as a snowman looking out to its environment and feeling cold and miserable inside just like the winter weather. This snowman is unlike a normal snowman with snowman characteristics because its only use in the poem is to describe the emotions of the author towards the society or environment he is placed in. The poem is written in one long sentence which I think means the continuousness of the misery the author feels inside of him since the sentence is a run on and “continuous”. Since this poem is written in a very broad way it can be
Langston Hughes is the author of the poem ‘trumpet player’ among other poems that weaves in the contemporary ideas relating to racial issues, past memories and jazz music (Alexander and Ferris 55). Essentially, his themes centered on African- American made him an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. The poet was born in Joplin, Missouri in the year 1902. His first work on poetry was published in the year 1921 (Baird 599). From there on, he wrote innumerable works of poetry, plays as well as proses (Baird 599). The poet died in the year 1967 out of prostate cancer complications. The trumpet player is one of the most important works done by Hughes. The title of the poem introduces the scene but it is quite figurative. At its face value, the title
What is the significance of the title? Does it refer to the short tune that British people played through instruments to commemorate those last at war? Why does Duffy cite the lines from Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Own for the first two sentences? Is she using juxtaposition to compare her perspective of the soldiers and that of Wilfred Owen? Or is it to create an image of the battlefields in the readers’ mind? Why does Duffy start the poem with the line “if poetry could tell it backwards” (3)? Does she travel backwards in time? If so, then is “tell it backwards” allude to how she imagines the soldiers if the war did not happen? Why does Duffy introduce the “moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud” (4)? Does the “shrapnel” indicate that there was possibly a bombardment or explosion at the site of the battlefield? Does the poet take the word “scythed” to make use of consonance of the “s” with “shrapnel”? Is she indirectly presenting the trenches as she describes the “stinking mud”? Who is the “you” referring to in this poem? Is it Harry Patch and Henry Allingham, the survivors of World War I? Why does Duffy state “you watch bled bad blood run upwards from the slime into its wounds” (5-6)? Is “bled bad blood” another use of consonance within the poem? Is Duffy emphasizing that time is traveling backwards as she depicts the blood going “upwards” and back “into its wounds”? Why does the poet portray the soldiers before the death as she “rewind” (7) them “back to their trenches” (8)? Is she stressing the potential life the “British boys” (7) might have had if they had survived the war? That they would be able to go back home and see their famil...
Analysis of Tony Harrison's Poems After reading and analysing the three Tony Harrison poems I found
Edward Thomas displays similar themes of nature, the constant presence of war, and the intensity of memory within the poems, “The Sun Used to Shine” and “The Sorrow of True Love”. The words of Robert Frost, an American poet during the early 20th century, greatly influences nature scenes that Thomas chooses. His relationships with Frost, other prominent figures in his life, and also his own personal life experiences shape the memories that Thomas depicts in his poetry. Thomas fought in World War I, therefore war is a significant element of his lifestyle, which translates into his poetry by usage of imagery of battles and the feeling of isolation given to the reader.
“Introduction to Poetry” is a beautiful poem that Billy Collins wrote to tell readers how to appreciate poetry in the proper method. Many readers maybe confuse by the first impression of the magnificent vocabularies or hard to find the meaning. Therefore, after reading it carefully, it’s easy to find out the thesis. Billy Collins is an affection poet who made a big contribution in the poetry development field in modern American. Indeed, as a thoughtful poet, he worries about the common mistake that most readers get trapped when they read poems. In this poem, he announces readers that everyone has his own opinion about a poem, and we can’t force everyone get the same feeling about a particular poem. Audience
Humans have a tendency to evade spiritual disconnectedness and rely on introspective healing to find direction in times of confusion. A.R. Ammon’s poem, “The City Limits,” illustrates the raw connectedness between the human soul and the supernatural world. Ammon uses imagery to generate a contemplative mood, a persuasive tone to engage the audience in meditation, and metaphors to simulate the setting of a stained-glass church or a peaceful environment secluded from the confines of a mind-polluting city, where one is capable of spiritual thought. Essentially, Ammon’s work revolves around the experience of meditation and the art of seeking God or enlightenment in times of spiritual detachment, ultimately reflecting the human desire for transcendence.
George Herbert is a 17th century poet who wrote various poems associating with the Bible and the Scriptures. Therefore, most of Herbert's poems have religious themes. Through metaphors and the imagery that it depicts, these poems points to a larger theme, the Christian viewpoints on Sin.
Timothy Winters by Charles Causley is about a young nine-year old boy called Timothy Winters. Charles Causley wrote this poem about a real boy suffering from poverty because of the lack of support from the Welfare State in the 1950’s. Charles Causley attitude towards this poem is suffering because the poem constantly mentions deprivations such as clothing, bedding, family and welfare support that make Timothy underprivileged. Two literary techniques used to communicate the theme and attitude of the poem are imagery and metaphor. A metaphor is used to explain the lack of support from the Welfare State. Imagery is used to describe Timothy’s appearance and the effects of poverty on the condition of where he lives. The lack of support from the Welfare State and the effects of being poor portray ‘suffering’ as Charles Causley’s attitude and Timothy Winters as the theme.