Trees by Joyce Kilmer
"Trees" is a poem by Joyce Kilmer. After reading and analyzing the brief twelve lines of this poem we believe that it is a religious poem. Kilmer gives praising attributes to the tree as if it were praising God. This poem also explains that trees are lovelier than a poem because any fool can write a poem, but only God can create a tree.
The poem "Trees" uses a literary device called a couplet. A couplet is two lines of poetry. Kilmer uses six different couplets. One example of couplet is in the first two lines: "I think that I shall never see/ A poem lovely as a tree." Most couplets are usually connected with rhyming end words. This method is present in "Trees." Rhyme is the likeness of word sounds. An example of rhyme in this poem is in the third and fourth lines: "A tree whose hungry mouth is prest/ Against the earth's sweet flowing breast." Prest and breast have like sounds therefore are rhyming words. The rhyme scheme of this poem is aa, bb, cc, dd, ee, aa. This is because the first two lines rhyme, the third and forth rhyme, and so on for the next three couplets, but the last couplet rhymes with the first two lines so it is also aa.
Another literary device present in "Trees" is simile. Simile is a comparison between two unlike objects using the words like or as. There are a few examples of simile in this poem. One, for instance, is on the second line: "A poem lovely as a tree." Kilmer uses "as" to compare lovely and tree. Kilmer also uses "like" to compare fools and me in the eleventh line: "Poems are made by fools like me." A simile is a great device to use in this poem because it gives the reader something to compared an object to which gives the object a greater effect.
Personification is a literary device also used in "Trees." Personification is a figure of speech in which human attributes are conferred upon things that are not human. Kilmer uses personification ecessively throughout this poem. An example of this is in line six: "And lifts her leafy arms to pray.
In today’s society, many struggle to freely demonstrate their identity in fear of potential backlash and disapproval from others. While examining the two poems within this assignment, "sturgeon" as well as "the same as trees," I distinguished the overarching theme of identity crisis, and the inability for individuals to effectively express themselves. The first poem being analyzed is “the same as trees” by Nicola I. Campbell. As a member of the Métis community, Campbell’s life has not been simple. Often, people of Métis origin have difficulty navigating their European and Indigenous roots.
This is amplified in “The Snow Gum”, where Stewart redefines the beauty of the eucalyptus tree. The composer describes the tree as having a “crown” relating that to royalty and regal. Thereafter, the poet extends this personification using “curve”, to reinforce and strengthen his view of the tree being human like and the distinction of it. Stewart expresses a connection to the royalty of the tree. Similarly, the poem “Waterlily” describes the beauty of a peaceful yellow water lily plant floating on water.
Out all of the figurative language used in the book, I chose three. The first one I used is found on page 2, “The Sun was climbing over the trees of city college and soon the black asphalt would shimmer with vapers.” This figurative language is personification because it is giving human-like traits to the sun. The meaning of quote is that the sun represents hope or a new day and the vapors of the onions represents the dreadful things that might happen; so basically, a hope versus evil scenario. It is significant to the book because the city is apparently cursed with onions that leaves vapor wherever a bad situation occurred. The whole hope vs evil is what really makes the book come to alive to. Next we will talk about the other figurative
The tree “swings through another year of sun and leaping winds, of leaves and bounding fruit.” This sentence evokes images of happiness and serenity; however, it is in stark contrast with “month after month, the whip-crack of the mortgage.” The tone of this phrase is harsh and the onomatopoeia of a “whip crack” stirs up images of oppression. The final lines of the poem show the consequences that the family accepts by preserving the tree—their family heritage. When the speaker judges the tree by its cover she sees monetary value, but when she looks at the content in the book she find that it represents family. Even though times may be tough for the family, they are united by memories of their ancestors.
At the beginning of the poem, the speaker starts by telling the reader the place, time and activity he is doing, stating that he saw something that he will always remember. His description of his view is explained through simile for example “Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets of their branches” (Updike), captivating the reader’s attention
Running Head: THE BEAN TREES. Abstract This book report deals with the Native American culture and how a girl named Taylor got away from what was expected of her as part of her rural town in Pittman, Kentucky. She struggles along the way with her old beat up car and gets as far west as she can. Along the way, she takes care of an abandoned child which she found in the backseat of her car and decides to take care of her.
7. The personification in the second stanza is that she gives poems the ability to hide and are waiting to be found. The author states that poems are hiding in the bottom of your shoes, and they are the shadows drifting across your ceiling before you wake up. This is personification because she gives the poems traits that only a living organism can possess.
The poem opens upon comparisons, with lines 3 through 8 reading, “Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets/ of their branches. The maples/ were colored like apples,/part orange and red, part green./ The elms, already transparent trees,/ seemed swaying vases full of sky.” The narrator’s surroundings in this poem illustrate him; and the similes suggest that he is not himself, and instead he acts like others. Just as the maples are colored like apples, he
It had called her to come and gaze at a mystery. From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloom. It stirred her tremendously" (10). Gazing across the garden, Janie "was seeking confirmation of the voice and vision, and everywhere she found and acknowledged answers. [she longed] to be a pear tree - any tree in bloom!...
"Children of the Forest" is a narrative written by Kevin Duffy. This book is a written testament of an anthropologist's everyday dealings with an African tribe by the name of the Mbuti Pygmies. My purpose in this paper is to inform the reader of Kevin Duffy's findings while in the Ituri rainforest. Kevin Duffy is one of the first and only scientists to have ever been in close contact with the Mbuti. If an Mbuti tribesman does not want to be found, they simply won't be. The forest in which the Mbuti reside in are simply too dense and dangerous for humans not familiar with the area to enter.
The tree is almost created into somewhat of a creature. With the limbs twisting out and rising into the air. Irving takes ordinary earthlike objects and changes the perspective of them into imaginary matter.
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
This is a figure of speech which takes on animals, ideas, abstractions and inanimate objects with human form, character or sensibilities. It is representing imaginary creatures or things as having human personalities, intelligence and emotions. In the poem ‘ALL THAT TIME’, in stanza one the poet has given the trees the human character of embracing each other and leaning on each other. The poet also describes one of the trees upright one which is also a human characteristic.
The Flowers By Alice Walker Written in the 1970's The Flowers is set in the deep south of America and is about Myop, a small 10-year old African American girl who explores the grounds in which she lives. Walker explores how Myop reacts in different situations. She writes from a third person perspective of Myop's exploration. In the first two paragraph Walker clearly emphasises Myop's purity and young innocence.
The short story, “Unlighted Lamps,” by author Sherwood Anderson is about a relationship between a father and his daughter. Their relationship is a stressful one because neither of them talk to each other, nor show their emotions. Throughout the story, you find out why their relationship is the way that it is, and why it is hard for her father to talk to her. The unlighted lamps in the story represent flashbacks of memories wherever light dances across something.