The poem instigates by reminiscing about the past and the destruction of the Indigenous culture and land. The speaker describes their body as in the shape of the Americas and the poem itself even takes shape of the two continents. Each part of the body is described as a different part of the landscape and we are taking a journey through the country and body alike. The speaker also describes very intimate moments in relation to the invasion of the English onto the Natives’ land. The lines “When your hands travel across my hemispheres know these lands have been invaded before and though I may quiver from your touch there is still a war” are very powerful because they both depict the invasion and betrayal of the English on Indian land while also portraying a very intimate moment.…
Novels are made to emerge with some history to surpass violence in the past. Each and every writer has their own use of history, “but you can’t escape it” (288). In “I Hear America Singing,” Walt Whitman incorporate the vast amount of everyday people; the spirit which significantly aid readers from Whitman’s tone. The first three lines of the poem already illuminates Whitman’s message of how America is full of monumental spirits: “I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear, / Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and strong, / The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam…” (1-3).…
Reflections From Sharon Kraus and Jeannine Johnson on "Facing It" In the poem "Facing It" by Yusef Komunyakaa, Komunyakaa uses his own experiences as a veteran in Vietnam to paint a picture to the readers of what it is like seeing the Vietnam Veterans Memorial from the viewpoint of a soldier who lived through the conflict. The critics Sharon Kraus and Jeannine Johnson argue that the wall serves as a reminder of all that is bad in Komunyakaa's life, beginning with his past military experiences which shape the social issues he still suffers with today. Along with Komunyakaa, we see the same effect with another soldier where the wall stands as a reminder to him as well. Throughout the poem, both critics seem to separate the issues into two groups.…
The poem, “Patty’s Charcoal Drive-In” is about a young teenage girl reflecting on her first job in the summer, working as a waitress at a fast food drive-in restaurant before she is bound to college. This poem is set during the 1950’s, where this young girl is reminiscing the youth she has left before she is “bound” to the chains of life. The tone in this poem show the readers how young teenager really feels about her work life as well as being worried about the future. From reading the first three lines, this poem gives the audience a visual picture of what the main character looks like as well as what time period this poem was based on.…
Conflict is shown in different ways in the poem, ‘The Man He Killed’, and ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’. One of the major differences seen between the two poems in the portrayal of conflict and war is where war is shown to be fought as a unit; a fight to be fought together, in ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’. Lord Tennyson portrays this by his use of repetition at the end of each stanza - “rode the six hundred”. He did this to emphasise how no-one left the rest of the cavalry when they had to fight for their country while knowing that they were most probably going to die. This would make the reader feel both sympathetic for the situation that the six hundred soldiers were put in (a choice between life and death), and proud that…
Written by Tameka Hobbs, “Strange Fruit: An Overview of Lynching in America” goes into very explicit detail regarding the inhumane, callous, and deplorable treatment that black people faced and encountered during most of the 1800s and the first half of the 1900s. The main topic which is discussed in the chilling article is the act of lynching, which are basically punishments that are created by a community of people who decide to act independently from the court of law’s general judicial proceedings. At first, lynching was not widely used nor was it considered as a first resort for punishment during the beginning of the slavery era. Even though the slaves were disciplined in a harsh manner, causing death was not the main goal since those same slaves were highly valued for their labor in the plantations, but as time went on, the practice of lynching swiftly became an…
Throughout this passage the speaker of the poem, a roué, encourages others to act in a libertine manner through his martial word choice, detailed imagery, and heroic stanza pattern. In the first stanza of this passage, the speaker shares a personal…
This short story shares a common narrator perspective with Billie Holiday’s song “Strange Fruit.” The song portrayed lynching in all of its brutality. From the juxtaposition of the smell of magnolias with that of burning flesh along with the scents of flowers and fruits, and with broken bones and blood of African Americans, the “strange fruit” was produced by racial abuse. The song simply exposes the brutality of racism in America. According to Johann Hari from Democracy Now, it was difficult to perform the song.…
Especially in chapter 22 of the second book titled the Sea Still Rises all about the storm of violence. Violence is a theme connected to motifs such as storm and is seen in the first poem. It says “With torn and…
The poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen shows the effects that eh war has on people and protests it when the text states that the soldiers, “ limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;”( 6). This document demonstrates the brutality of war and the things that the soldiers have to go through. Imagery is used to display these things. However, imagery is not the only way that writers protest…
At the end of the poem the speaker says “Now I am dry bones and my face a stony skull staring in yellow surprise at the sun” symbolizing the irony of enlightenment that comes at the end of this merciless killing. There is a shift from innocence to knowledge in this line; the victim learns that social injustice and man’s inhumanity to man imposed on him is…
The poet emphasizes a lot about America and war and that he does not like it. He talks about how Russians and that “America its them bad Russians. / Them Russians…
World War 1 was believed to be the war that would end all wars. It was new, exciting and was expected to be over before the Christmas of 1914. Then, 4 years later, after gruesome trench warfare and severe casualties, our views on war changed completely. The days of enthusiastic enlistment dissolved, while the horrifying reality about the battlefield emerged. This change in beliefs, and the influence of generations, can be seen accurately through the poems, “Dulce Et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen and “Pro Patria” by Owen Seaman.…
Unlike The Soldier, Owen’s poem tells the horrifying experiences that a soldier is going through, the inhumane and unthinkable images that happen during the war. The poem has an anti-war approach and explains it with shocking imagery. The poem follows a theme of war, patriotism, and propaganda. The poem follows an iambic pentameter with 28 lines and starts out as a double sonnet. The poems have a rhyme scheme of an octave (AB, AB, CD, CD) during the first stanza, but drops this structure and goes solo.…
Chapter 6 is entitled “The sway of Romantic Poetics in Jennings’s Moments of Grace and Celebrations and Elegies” .Many critics have argued that Jennings sensibility is Romantic compared to her anti-romantic peers. So the chapter looks into the romantic aspects of her poetry especially with the poems in the above two volumes. The chapter also draws throws light on the essay ‘Fond of What He’s Crapping On’: Movement Poetry and Romanticism by Michael O’ Neill.…