Poem Reflection
Poetry is tricky because very few words are used in them. Authors use hidden meaning in their words to get the reader’s attention. The messages in the words are to be found by symbols which naturally do not mean what we think they mean but to an author it means something different. Understanding what poems are and how they are worded is the key to finding the hidden message.
The poem that I have decided to write about is “Boy at the Window” by Richard Wilbur.
Richard Wilbur said that he wrote “Boy at the Window” after seeing how distressed his five-year-old son was about a snowman they had built (Clugston, 2010). As I was reading the poem I could tell that this might just have been a personal experience that the author had went through at some point in his life. Whether it is when he was a child or a child of his own. It was evident once you started to read more of the poem. He was able to give off a sense that he had been put through this.
The three elements that stood out the most to me were the tone, theme and symbolism. The tone in a poem helps you feel what is going on in it. It requires you to pay close attention so you can imagine what is happening. As stated in Chapter 10, Poets rely heavily on sound effects, choosing words that not only convey sound but also emphasize the particular sound (tone) they want the reader to sense (Clugston, 2010). They choose to do this to help us get connected to what we are reading. The author intensified the tone of this poem by including rhyme into his poem. He emphasized the vowels making it more dramatic. The tone being used is an emotional meaning to the author and what he watched his five year old go through. The little boy sees the snowman lonely and the author c...
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.... The way he spoke it showed fear in the boys face; helping me to paint the picture of the boy in the window and feel what the boy was feeling. According to David Hanauer (2004) he defines poetry as a literary text that presents the experiences, thoughts, and feelings of the writer through a self-referential use of language that creates for the reader and writer a new understanding of the experience, thought, or feeling expressed in the text. I agree with his definition of poetry and you can see that in the poem “Boy in the Window”.
Works Cited
Clugston, R.W. (2010). Journey into literature. Retrieved from https:// content.ashford.edu
Hanauer, D., & Rivers, D. (2004). Poetry and the meaning of life [electronic resource] : reading and writing poetry in language arts classrooms / David Ian Hanauer ; [edited by Dyanne Rivers]. Toronto : Pippin Pub. Corp., c2004
In poetry, three things are used to help the reader understand the poem better. These things are syntax, imagery, and connotation.
The ability of words to calm a child’s fears is shown in “A Barred Owl.” Additionally, the author conveys the idea that even though one may say everything is alright, what one makes up in one’s mind is often worse than reality. The rhyme scheme in “A Barred Owl” helps depict the simple and soothing tone of the poem. Not only the rhyme scheme but also the repetition of certain consonants and sounds such as, “the warping night air having brought the boom / of an owl’s voice into her darkened room” help emphasize Wilbur’s i...
One example of analyzing the poem is how the lines stop in random places. This can also be called, enjambment. The poem is describing a fight. When fights happen, they are fast and quick and intense, the author tries to recreate the chaos and speed of the fight by using enjambment. The second example of analyzing the poem is that the stanzas are broken up into four lines. The only lines that are not broken up into four lines are the last ones, which are broken up into couplets. The third example of analyzing this poem, is that there are a lot of metaphors that bring out the intense and vehement emotion, such as, “A wall of fire sethes…”. This brings out all the emotions in the air, and what the angry parents feel like, even though the author doesn’t say that they were mad, you can guess how much anger and tension is in the
With every different scene, Soto makes it flow very well by introducing each place with detail and what is surrounding the characters at that moment. I think it was thought out well and every “W” question can be answered easily. The poetic devices that I found were simile, metaphor, and personification. The similes within the poem were “tiered like bleachers,” and “fog hanging like old coats.” The metaphors that I found were “That was so bright against / The gray of December / That, from some distance, / Someone might have thought / I was making a fire in my hands.” and “Light in her eyes, a smile...” The personification I found was “a few cars hissing past,” and “the lady’s eyes met mine.” His tone in this poem was nonchalant but at the same time passionate. I used two opposite words to describe his tone because he is nonchalant in telling it; it is about something that was so simple. Though the tone is also passionate because it’s a bigger memory that someone could have and cherish. Soto’s attitude was more of carefree and nostalgic. This poem shows Gary Soto’s different colors and that is represented from when he was acknowledged for his first collection of poems in 1976 for the United States Award of the International Poetry Forum. I think that is a great accomplishment considering his family and education situation. Him and his family were struggling to find work as he was growing up, so instead of focusing on his
...r’.” Poetry for students. Ed. Sara Constantakis. Vol. 43 Detroit: Gale, 2013. Literature Resource Center. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?>.
...eading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education, 2008. 709. Print
Poetry, Drama, and the Essay. Ed. Joseph Terry. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc, 2001.
rhyme. The poem has an A B A C D E A D rhyme. For instance, the words "Sense,"
The first literary device that can be found throughout the poem is couplet, which is when two lines in a stanza rhyme successfully. For instance, lines 1-2 state, “At midnight, in the month of June / I stand beneath the mystic moon.” This is evidence that couplet is being used as both June and moon rhyme, which can suggest that these details are important, thus leading the reader to become aware of the speaker’s thoughts and actions. Another example of this device can be found in lines 16-17, “All Beauty sleeps!—and lo! where lies / (Her casement open to the skies).” These lines not only successfully rhyme, but they also describe a woman who
Not only the words, but the figures of speech and other such elements are important to analyzing the poem. Alliteration is seen throughout the entire poem, as in lines one through four, and seven through eight. The alliteration in one through four (whisky, waltzing, was) flows nicely, contrasting to the negativity of the first stanza, while seven through eight (countenance, could) sound unpleasing to the ear, emphasizing the mother’s disapproval. The imagery of the father beating time on the child’s head with his palm sounds harmful, as well as the image of the father’s bruised hands holding the child’s wrists. It portrays the dad as having an ultimate power over the child, instead of holding his hands, he grabs his wrists.
Poetry, Drama, and the Essay. Ed. Joseph Terry. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc, 2001.
Form and meaning are what readers need to analyze to understand the poem that they are evaluating. In “Mother to Son”, his form of writing that is used frequently, is free verse. There is no set “form”, but he gets his point across in a very dramatic way. The poem is told by a mother who is trying to let her son know that in her life, she too has gone through many frustrations just like what her son is going through. The tone of this poem is very dramatic and tense because she illustrates the hardships that she had to go through in order to get where she is today. She explains that the hardships that she has gone through in her life have helped her become the person that she has come to be. Instead of Hughes being ironic, like he does in some of his poems, he is giving the reader true background on the mother’s life. By introducing the background, this helps get his point across to the reader in a very effective way. In this poem there are many key words which help portray the struggles that the mother is trying to express to her son. The poem is conveyed in a very “down to earth” manner. An example of this is, “Life for me ain’t been a crystal stair (462).” This quote shows the reader that the mom is trying to teach the son a lesson with out sugar coating it. She wants her son to know that throughout her life has had many obstacles to overcome, and that he too is going to have to get through his own obstacles no matter how frustrating it is. Her tone throughout the poem is stern telling the boy, “So boy, don’t turn your back (462).” The poems tone almost makes the reader believe that the mother is talking to them, almost as if I am being taught a valuable lesson.
It is relatively easy to see the repression of blacks by whites in the way in which the little black boy speaks and conveys his thoughts. These racial thoughts almost immediately begin the poem, with the little black boy expressing that he is black as if bereaved of light, and the little English child is as white as an angel. The wonderful part of these verses is the fact that the little black boy knows that his soul is white, illustrating that he knows about God and His love.
When reading or listening to poetry, the main objective for me is to feel moved. Happiness, longing, sadness are some of the feelings that can be achieved just by listening to others’ words. It is within these words that creates another world, or separates us from our own. Words all have a certain kind of attachment to them, so if used properly an author can stimulate a reader beyond belief.
Unlike her brother, Dorothy seems to be less solitary in her experiences, her accounts of what happened and who was with her are less personal than William’s. Dorothy tends to include everyone who surrounded her at that point and time – ‘We [Dorothy and her brother William] were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park’ – whereas William makes it a companionless experience, he forgets everyone that may have been sharing the moment with him – ‘I wandered lonely as a Cloud’ . This, in conjunction with the use of imagery, similes and personification, not only makes William’s poems more accessible to a wide range of readers but it also adds character and personality, whereas Dorothy’s journal tends to be more reserved and closed to interpretation. Although both use semantic field of nature, William’s use is more affective as it conveys emotion, passion and attachment to his work.