The reason I chose “Citizenship” by Javier Zamora is because of its accurate reality and
the influential details he pointed out from his journey in 1999. While watching the video of him
reading the poem out loud, the sadness in his voice and eyes caught my attention. The purpose of
this poem is to tell how difficult for migrants when they come to the United States, especially
from the borders of Mexico where they will stay in the U.S. permanently once they enter. No
way to go back. The poet describes how they come empty-handed, hungry, and how they
struggle with living in the streets because they do not speak English. Not everyone came with
green cards, if did, then they would not go through such a hardship as being homeless, without
an identity, and importantly empty-handed.
The poem reminded me of my past when my family came to the United States in 2014,
even though we came with a green card, we still had difficulties such as not being able to
communicate with people because we did not know English, how my parents struggled to find an
apartment right after another. Reading through the “Citizenship,” gave me a feeling of sorrow
and disappointment because I realized there are people out there who went or going through
worsening than us. As the poet mentioned in lines 3 and 4
“they were hungry because their hands
were empty their hands in trashcans”
Imagine migrating to another country with dreams and hopes but ending up living in the
streets and hands in trashcans therefore it is very unfortunate. Moreover, the author also states
that it can lead to harsh depression, not just the individual himself, it could be his whole family
that came together. In lines 22 and 23:
“We didn’t know how we had ended up here
we didn’t know but we understood why they walk”
Javier Zamora says that he was only nine years old when he went through this without his
family, and you can still notice the sadness in him when he is reading “Citizenship.”
Throughout my research, another poem by Javier Zamora “Let Me Try Again” has
similarities with “Citizenship.” The poet uses several word meanings such as left out in hunger,
and in a situation of trying to migrate. “Let Me Try Again” was meant to address the difficulties
he went through while trying to cross the borders, therefore they were caught by the police
officers and were sent back to where they come from. Listening to the poet articulate the poem, a
reader gets more intense of sorrow and loss than when it is read. The poems take the reader
through the speaker’s journey, from the specificity of his experience and awareness of conveying
it to the shared experiences he had with other migrants.
In conclusion, the poet has given a reader a clear and memorable vision of
migration, detail by detail from his own experience. Moreover, the reader gets the opportunity to
read about the tough realities that come with illegal border crossings
Poetry Analysis
Poetry
If you are Over Staying Woke
“If You are Over Staying Woke” is a poem written by Morgan Parker and published in 2015 with Poetry Magazine. The poem identifies as modern and contextual, giving reference to concepts specific to the United States. The poem highlights the stereotypes and social difficulties a modern black person faces in their everyday life. The author has effectively shown the exhaustion the black person goes through in their moments of intense vigilance.
The poem does not have a rhyme scheme and comprises short and simple sentences and lines. The style and arrangement of the poem symbolize life and the life timeline, showing how people undergo emotions with time. Adverbs and verbs are used in the poem to describe what is happening and motivate and impact the reader to seek their freedom. Apart from the structure and syntax, the poem doesn’t contain many other literary devices. The poem has a distinctive structure, with lines that appear to end at random. To make sense of the lines, the reader is required to connect them with the next line. For instance, the world is like/ for white people (Parker 17-18). The sentences are brief and straightforward, laughing at how simple-minded people tend to be.
The poem has a strong and passionate tone to it. The poem’s vocabulary adds to the passion, with the verbs highlighting the poem’s goal. The poem’s form and brief lines are straightforward and get right to the author’s point. The poem’s structure establishes a tempo and shows how quickly life moves. Towards the end, the author uses repetition of the word ‘funeral’ to emphasize where everything in life ends; death.
The author has used an eye-catching title intended to elicit the attention of the reader at first glance. I like how the author has made the poem simple through her word choice and form. She primarily uses verbs and adverbs to describe what is happening throughout the poem. I like how the simplistic nature of the lines reflects the idea that the men and women described are simplistic. At first glance, a reader gets what the poem is about without the need to read between the lines. I feel that the persona seems to be annoyed as if prescribing a specific way the reader is supposed to live their life. While taking a jibe at the privileged white race, the persona seems to be targeting the Black race with pieces of advice, even though some of them appear wild. The voice in the poem appears to be calling on the readers to be true to themselves and make mistakes and learn from them. While I resonate with some lines in the poem, I find it difficult to agree with others. For instance, why would I need to keep a corkscrew in my purse? (Parker 8-9). Nevertheless, I guess that was the author’s intention; to come up with a poem with many verbs and adverbs that reflects the reality of life for many socioeconomic groups. Throughout the poem, the author calls on the reader to be wary of the news out there. The reader is encouraged to refuse to hear the news, see the news, turn off the news and write their news.
Parker’s tendency to use lists as a style for her poems is also seen in the poem “99 problems.” Although the poem takes a narrative style, the events are listed as short lines that make a total of 99 lines. Just like the poem “If you are over Staying Woke,” the poem takes a simplistic approach and is not laden with many stylistic devices, a characteristic of Parker.
Work Cited
Parker, Morgan. “If You are Over Staying Woke.” Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/58028/if-you-are-over-staying-woke
Poetry Analysis
Ronald Mei
English 201
Professor Perry
25 April 2022
Poetry Analysis
The poem I have chosen to analyze is “Learning to love America” by Shirley Geok-Lin Lim. This poem stood out to me because I feel related to the poem. Lin Lim’s poem starts off the majority of the sentences with the word ‘because’, which made me think that she was going to explain her story as an immigrant. When Lin Lim’s poem talked about the ocean swept along the coastline, it made me visualize why my parent work so hard to get settled in America. The poem “Learning to Love America” brings up my feeling about America and things to look back at in the future.
Lin Lim uses a lot of imagery and identity throughout her poem. An example of imagery used in the poem would be, “because my senses have caught up with my body, my breath with the air it swallows, my hunger with my mouth”. Based on this stanza, we can visualize the feeling of Lin Lim’s current state. When it comes to identity, the title kind of represents it already. Lin Lim expresses how his son struggles to adapt to the American lifestyle. She also describes the imperfections of the United States, which also builds the connection with the reader through relatabilities.
A different poem by Shirley Geok-Lin Lim that grabbed my attention is called ” Mother to Son”. This poem’s aspiring tone was the main reason why it caught my attention. The way Lin Lim writes her poems makes it easy for readers to paint the image in their heads. A great example of this is ” Go now and learn it.” After reading this line, you feel like she’s talking to you and you start imagining it. When rereading the poem, you can get multiple meanings because of previous memories and combine the different elements.
Both poems ” Learning to Love America” and ” Mother to son” by Shirley Geok- Lin Lim show a connection between her and her son. In ” Learning to Love America ” described how his son is having a hard time adapting to being an “American”. Lin Lim wrote a response for her son in ” Mother in son “, where she says ” You must believe me when I tell you there is a deep secret you must learn, a secret that can never be shared.” Based on both these quote it shows that Shirley Geok Lin Lim likes to write about his son.
Shirley Geok Lin Lim’s poems express a message to readers and an experience. The poems Lin Lim writes feel super relatable and her other poems are probably similar. The two peom shows that Lin Lim isn’t afraid to express her feeling about being an immigrant. As an Asian American with immigrant parents, I admire her work.
Work CitedGeok-Lin Lim , Shirley. “Learning to Love America.” Poetry Out Loud, https://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/learning-to-love-america/.
Foust, Rebecca. “Three Poems from Ars Poetica for the Day by Shirley Geok-Lin Lim: ‘The Well,” ‘the Glass of Wine,” and ‘Mother to Son’: Women’s Voices for Change.” Women’s Voices For Change | Redefining Life After 40, 1 Oct. 2017, https://womensvoicesforchange.org/three-poems-from-ars-poetica-for-the-day-by-shirley-geok-lin-lim-the-well-the-glass-of-wine-and-mother-to-son.htm.
Poetry Analysis
I chose the poem Seven by Natalie Diaz because the way the author talked about Christiano Ronaldo grabbed me and made me want to read more. It showed how much Christiano Ronaldo meant to the soccer community and Maderia Portugal, the place he was born in. While reading the poem, I imagined Christiano Ronaldo playing on the soccer field and the crowd cheering for him as he tries to make a goal. I then began to think about how good of a soccer player he is and all his accomplishments. The poem also reminded me of all the Christiano Ronaldo jerseys I’ve seen people wear throughout kindergarten, middle school, and high school.
This poem is specifically an ode poem about the life of Christiano Ronaldo and what an amazing soccer player he is. This poem expresses how much he means to the soccer community, the author, and the country he was born in. Also, the way the poem was written made it seem like Christiano Ronaldo wrote this himself, “If I’m human, I am the lightest of them all, I’m a lamp and cover territory like a flame, speed like an Iberian wolf — my boots barely touch the ground. Beneath my feet every blade of grass lifts up in Spring and green-que te quiero verde! Alchemists call my sweat “aqua regia,” the King’s water, meaning I take gold. But my ambition ends up always wanting more, always wanting more” (lines 12-17). The author thinks very highly of him and appreciates his playing techniques on the soccer field.
After looking at the structure of the poem, I think this poem is more of a Pindaric ode/free verse. According to https://www.poetryfoundation.org/learn/glossary-terms/free-verse and https://www.vam.ac.uk/, a free verse is a verse in lines of irregular length and mostly irregular rhyming if there is any. Free verse follows the natural rhythms of speech and I saw that in this poem. The reason why I also said it’s a Pindaric ode because according to https://www.masterclass.com/, a Pindaric ode also includes irregular lines and rhyming schemes, I am chemical, elemental– I am Nitrogen, which translates to “nothing.”/ Nothing but force./ Nothing but pressure. Nothing but the back of the net. I am 78 percent of the earth’s atmosphere /– I am everywhere, and many. Breathe me in. If I’m human” (lines 9-12).
After reading the poem again while knowing that it’s a free verse, I kind of look at it in a different way. I still think the poem is about honoring Christian Ronaldo, but I can see how this needed to be a free verse. It allows the author to freely express how she feels about the famous soccer player. I think the poem had more feeling to it because there wasn’t a strict pattern. I also think the audience can connect to the author’s emotions better when it’s a free verse poem.
Another poem I chose to talk about is Skin Light by Natalie Diaz. I think the words she used were beautiful and it also had me wanting to read more of the poem. I was interested in understanding the meaning and why she used the words she used in the poem. I imagined a field full of glowing gold flowers at night and the flowers were getting brighter and brighter at the beginning of the poem. In the middle I imagined the flowers getting dimmer, then at the end I imagined the field of flowers getting brighter again. The feeling of bittersweet came up when I read this poem. I think that this poem is also a free verse because it has a natural rhythm of speech and gives the audience room for interpretation.
I think the similarities I see between Seven and Skin Light are that they both are free verses and that the author uses beautiful words to describe things in a touching way. They also give the audience space to interpret what the poem is about. I think that the author writing free verse poems helps her get her emotions across better than creating a poem with a specific structure. I think it allows her to connect with the audience better.
In conclusion, when I read the poem Seven by Natalie Diaz, I believe that it was a heartfelt tribute to Christiano Ronaldo. She was speaking for the soccer community and herself. After reading this poem, I realized how much Christiano Ronaldo means to the soccer community and his home country. It also made me think about how good of a soccer player he is to the world. After watching videos about Christiano Ronaldo shooting a goal, I can see why he is one of the best players in the world. I can also see why the author and the soccer community love him and are inspired by him and his achievements.
Poetry Analysis
My Brother at 3 A.M. by Natalie Diaz is the poem I select. I like this poem because it is like a suspense movie. At the beginning of the poem, Natalie Diaz depicts a depressive and intense scene for me. I have no idea what was going on before Brother said someone wanted to kill him. Just like some suspense movies, the director will set a mystery atmosphere in the start of the movie to firmly seize viewers’ attention. So, the intense atmosphere of the beginning of the poem drew my attention successfully.
The perspective of My Brother at 3 A.M. is kind of like third person narration. The author may be involved in the poem that she wrote, or maybe she is standing for something to express something. She was watching her Brother weeping on the step painfully, and her mother was trying to comfort her brother. Also, I feel the Brother broke down from reality based on the conversation between him and Mother. The Brother told his mother there was a devil who wanted to kill him, and he kept saying “O God”(3,22,25) repeatedly. These kinds of words make me feel the Brother lost his reality, and he was in the state of being delirious. Furthermore, I still don’t know what is happening with the Brother at the end of the poem. But, there were two assumptions in my mind. The first one is that the Brother abused a lot of drugs, so he began to lose his mind. The second one is that this is maybe one of the nightmares once happened to the author. In fact, no matter what the result or consequence of this poem. I think this poem is charming enough to grab my attention, and it is unforgettable. This poem is like a short suspense movie that Diaz invites me to watch with her. Although there are not many more characters in this poem, the mood and tone of this poem is quite impressive.
There are seven quatrains in this poem, and the italic sentence is indicating the conversation. In the most common situation, the conversation in the context is usually quoted by quotation mark, but the author uses italic to indicate the conversation rather than using quotation mark. Based on the tone of this poem, I think the italic is used to express an unstable and create an intensive environment. I consider there are two functions of italic here. The one is emphasizing the Brother break down from reality. The other one is to strengthen the worry from the mother. Besides, there is an indent in the last two sentences. These spaces are just like a stair to push the story to keep moving to the next plot. Although the author uses the same sentences to develop the story, the usage of index makes each standex become different from each other. Moreover, “O God”(3, 22, 25) is what the brother often said in this poem. These two simple words express the depression and sadness from the Brother. It is like a person who was trapped into a deep dark hole. He can not realize if this is reality or not, and he is feeling hopeless. All of the elements are powerful, and it is enough accuracy to express the sober feeling from the author.
The second poem I select is My Brother My Wound by Natalie Diaz as well. I choose this poem because I am interested in what the connection is with the poem My Brother at 3 A.M.. These two poems are talking about the Brother, but the style of writing is different. In the first one, the author is not involved in the scene, and she is invisible. But, in the poem My Brother My Wound, Diaz is the part of the poem. She tried to help her brother get out of choking, and she had some conversation with him. The depiction of this poem is also full of imagination. For instance, Natalia Diaz shows ” So I punched my fists against his stomach/Mars flew out”(12-13). The term “Mars” here seems to release something unknown or secret by the Brother, and Natalie Diaz is the only person who knows this secret. Also, this poem reminds me of my cousin. We have lived together since he was born, and we are like siblings. However, I hated having a brother when I was young because I did not like to share everything with him. I often refused to share my stuff with him and tried to argue with him. Maybe for my cousin, I was the person who made the wound for him. I had done a lot of bad things to him. But, as the time went by, my mind became mature. When I threw back to the thing I did to him, I felt extremely guilty. I tried to do something to compensate for him and learned to be a good elder cousin. Now, I am proud of having a little cousin and brother, and I think Natalie Diaz is also proud of her brother.
There are eight stanzas in the poem My Brother My Wound, and most of the stanzas have four lines. Although each stanzas are different, I think the structure of this poem is kind of like symmetry. Because Natalie Diaz writes “He said, Look Look. And they did”(16) and “He said, Lift up your shirt. And I did.”(17) These two stanzas stand in the middle of the poem. The structure and rhythm are similar, and there are also three stanzas above and under them. I also consider these two stanzas divided the story into two parts. The stanzas ” He said, Look Look. and they did”(16) is like the ending of the introduction of this poem’s story. And, the stanzas “He said, Lift up your shirt. And I did” (17) is like the beginning of the next part of the story. To begin to tell the reader how the Brother made a “wound” for “me”. Therefore, I think these two stanzas are important in this poem because they are like strong bridges to connect and narrate the poem.In sum, like Natalie Diaz said in the interview, “I’m hoping that when they arrive into this collection that they’re offered a way to return to themselves.” The poems I selected from her are having a strong connection with myself. I like My Brother at 3 A.M. because it is like a suspense movie to draw my curiosity firmly. And My Brother My Wound is also recalling something bad I did to my cousin. Both of these poems provide a way to help me reflect and learn more about myself. These two poems are not only just about She and Her Brother, but also a mirror to see who I am.
My Brother at 3 A.M.
I chose to analyze “My Brother at 3 A.M.” by Natalie Diaz for a couple different reasons. First of all, after reading about Natalie Diaz’s journey I was sold on learning more about her art. Then after reading some of her poems, “My Brother at 3 A.M.” stopped me in my tracks. I am typically extremely dense when it comes to poetry so my initial reaction to the meaning behind the poem ended up not being the reality of it so I thought it would be interesting to explore the different ways this poem could be perceived.
After I read through it for the first time, I thought this poem was about physical abuse and the father’s addiction. I was sure that the son was terrified of his father physically harming him. Even though the brother wasn’t saying that his father was the devil and wasn’t even pointing in his direction, I still had an inkling that he was trying to insinuate his father was the devil. I saw the “sores on his lips” as possible lesions caused by blows to his head. I had the impression that because the father was sleeping through the entire interaction between the mother and son, he was probably passed out from an extensive amount of alcohol or drugs which also would have contributed to him physically harming his son. I believed that this poem was exploring a mother learning about her husband beating their son due to his own substance abuse.
I discovered just how dense I am when it comes to poetry after doing some research and discovering the real meaning behind this poem. Of course then, it all finally made sense to me. The “sores on his lips” were from his substance abuse addiction and the “devil” that he was seeing were hallucinations from that substance. Diaz is bringing to light an issue that unfortunately, many people suffer from. This particular instance saddens me further with a mother discovering these tendencies of her son. I cannot relate to feeling the love that a mother has for her child, but I can relate to having a mother who would give me the clothes off her back in a heartbeat. I can’t imagine what this mother or what any family member experiences when someone is suffering from an addiction, especially the moment she realizes it at the end of the poem.
Despite the captivating nature of this poem, another reason I was drawn to analyze this poem was the repetition of verses that Diaz used to exaggerate the serious points she was hoping (and did) get across to the reader. Personally, the repetition reminded me of a panicked mother who is asking the same questions over and over again in hopes of helping her child. The most impactful phrase that was featured multiple times that also exhibited personification was “Stars had closed their eyes or sheathed their knives”. This is a sentence that I thought about countless times trying to make sense of and what I came up with is that the “stars” being the night surrounding this confrontation was so awful, that they couldn’t stand to watch any longer so they “closed their eyes or sheathed their knives”.
In conclusion, this work of art that Natalie Diaz has created will stay with me forever. Addiction is a very real and very heartbreaking thing that I wish wasn’t as common as it is. Substances bring out the “devil” in the person they’ve consumed. She not only did a phenomenal job of showing how substance abuse affects the victim and their mind but also their loved ones. This poem has also inspired me to read more poetry in my free time with how much I truly enjoyed it despite it’s dark meaning.
Poetry Analysis
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