The essay will consider the poem 'Practising' by the poet Mary Howe. It will explore how this poem generates its meaning and focus by analysing its techniques, metaphorical construct and its treatment of memory. The poem can primarily be seen to be a poem of missed opportunity. In this way is comes to form, alongside other poems of Howe's a study about a certain kind of loss and the recuperative efforts of memory, alongside the certainty of the failure of this recuperation. The paper will begin by giving a context to the poem with regard to Howe's life and work and will then proceed to analyse it directly, drawing attention to how it can be seen to fulfil this thesis about its content and meaning. Howe is a contemporary poet who's work has …show more content…
Immediately following the statement they kissed each other's necks is the statement that the girls also 'We sucked each other's breasts, and we left marks, and never spoke of it upstairs / outdoor, in daylight, not once' (11). The clear and simple statement that the girls sucked each other's breasts extends into a longer sentence, which generates the sense of the intensity of the memory dissipating and the desire generated in the action remains unfulfilled. This is immediately followed with another affirmation, present again in a sentence which extends itself: 'We did it, and it was / practicing, and slept sprawled so our legs still locked or crossed, a hand still lost / in someone's hair' (11). The first line of this pair perfectly manifests the tension between memory and loss which is present in the poem. The line break after the word 'was' presents a reading of the words before it as simply an affirmation that the desire between the girls and their physical intimacy actually and really existed. The continuation of the sentence past this line break into a long and diverse sentence detailing in tender detail the way in which the girls would sleep holding each other, serves both to affirm this memory further but also to show that the affirmation in the simple fact of 'and it was' could not be adequately fulfilled within the world of the speaker's youth. She both affirms the event through her memory and at the …show more content…
The poem works by somatically describing an event in the speaker's youth, and through its use of varying prosody and line breaks generates both the sense of an overwhelming torrent of particular details and of a simple clear affirmation that an event happened. The event, however, remains largely unfulfilled and it is this lack of fulfilment on behalf of the speaker which leads to the direct sense that the poem is both a song of celebration and a lamentation for unfulfilled potential happiness. As mentioned at the start of this paper, it is this combination which can be seen to be the distinguishing trait of much of Howe's
Throughout stage two, the girls do not adjust easily to St. Lucy’s. The narrator states that “We spent a lot of time daydreaming during this period” as well
Three Girls Questions 1. The final sentence in the story say that the two girls kissed and accepted their feelings for each other. I was pleasantly surprised of the fact that the two girls were actually in love with each other. Initially I had the notion that the girls were comparing their love of books in a manner that related with loving someone else, however, the real conflict was the girl’s exploration into the process of professing their love for each other. So the understanding of the text was changed drastically by the finally sentence.
It’s detailed like a memory and provides the audience of just one incidence the narrator was able to recollect. The poem’s main focus is to take a little look into the disparity between traditional feminine
Nikky Finney's book Head Off and Split is a work of art in every sense. It combines both historical elements and personal elements. She shines the light on our countries habit of oppressing and enslaving African Americans. She masterfully weaves together the history of the time and her own memories in an unabashed way that lays bare the wrongdoings of our country. Forcing the reader to see part of our history that is often glossed and skimmed over in conventional textbooks.
Different worlds and different words as her father wanted to her to
Poetry Analysis Once the poem “History Lesson” was written numerous poetry foundations celebrated it for many reasons. “History Lesson” not only makes an impact on literature today it has also impacted people also. This poem inspires people and moves them to the point to where they can find a personal connection to the poem itself and to the writer. Not only does it hold emotional value for those who were victimized and those whose family were victimized by the laws of segregation, but the poem is also celebrated for its complexity. The poem uses many techniques to appeal to the reader.
It has been said that “beauty is pain” and in the case of this poem, it is quite literal. “For That He Looked Not Upon Her” written by George Gascoigne, a sixteenth century poet, is a poem in which the speaker cannot look upon the one he loves so that he will not be trapped by her enhanced beauty and looks. In the form of an English sonnet, the speaker uses miserable diction and visual imagery to tell the readers and his love why he cannot look upon her face. Containing three quatrains and a rhyming couplet at the end, this poem displays a perfect English sonnet using iambic pentameter to make it sound serious and conversational. This is significant because most sonnets are about love and each quatrain, in English sonnets, further the speaker’s
The poem, At Mornington was written by Australian poet, Gwen Harwood. It was published in 1975 under her own name. At Mornington is about a woman reminiscing about her past when she is with her friend. There are many themes explored in this poem including memory, death and time passing.
The final poem of significance is Jazzonia, in which Hughes experiments with literary form to transform the act of listening to jazz into an ahistorical and biblical act. Neglecting form, it is easy to interpret the poem shallowly as a simple depiction of a night-out in a cabaret with jazz whipping people into a jovial frenzy of singing and dancing. But, the poem possesses more depth, when you immerse yourself in the literary form. The first aspect of form to interrogate is the couplet Hughes thrice repeats: “Oh, silver tree!/Oh, shining rivers of the soul!” Here, we see the first transformation.
For example, the first stanza creates the image of a little girl playing with the usual toys, like the baby born dolls (the dolls that did pee-pee), mini GE stoves, and makeup. Female readers can easily relate to playing with these toys as children. They are the typical toys given to girls at a young age, which is the point of presenting this information. It shows the girl was brought up like usual, which makes it seem like the ending of the poem could also become commonplace. It also gives a good visual representation of her body at the funeral when the speaker says she has a “turned up putty nose”, which makes the girl seem both perfect and fake.
In the poem “Ego-Tripping” by Nikki Giovanni, she normalizes her worth by continuing to royalist herself as a black woman who is essential to mankind. Giovanni creates a vision throughout the poem, which leaves a thought in mind of how woman should look at themselves with much confidence as Giovanni does. “Ego Tripping” was written by Yolande Cornelia “Nikki” Giovanni, Jr. who was born in Knoxville, Tennessee on June 7, 1943. G9iovanni is a writer, poet, activist, and educator whose work was influenced during the Black Power Movements and the Civil Rights Movement. The poem was released in 2002.
Rina Morooka Mr Valera Language Arts Compare and Contrast essay on “The poet’s obligation”, “When I have fears that I may cease to be”, and “In my craft of sullen art” The three poems, “The poet’s obligation” by Neruda, “when I have fears that I may cease to be” by Keats, and “In my craft of sullen art” by Thomas, all share the similarity that they describe poets’ relationships with their poems. However, the three speakers in the three poems shared different views on their poetry; the speaker in Neruda’s poem believes that his poems which were born out of him stored creativity to people who lead busy and tiring life, and are in need of creativity, while the speaker in Keats’ poem believes that his poems are like tools to write down what
By nature, shorter poems are more densely packed with cues and devices because authors cannot express their intended message over the sweeping length of a poem but rather they must be more concise and creative. A poet may write a shorter poem to juxtapose a simple surface message to a more meaningful deeper message. Thus, complexity and artistic value are unrelated to length, but rather, they are developed through masterful writing. “Good Times” by Lucille Clifton embodies the double-edged sword of complex storytelling within a short poem, as she identifies the speaker 's occasional good memories to develop an image of the speaker’s typical abject life. The short poem is crafted with patterns of repetition, for there are so few lines to fit meaningful insight into.
When the narrator first noticed the so-called love of his life, he says, “my body was like a harp and her words and gestures were like fingers running upon the wires” (Joyce np). With this, the narrator is provided with a newfound purpose in life, yet this does not last long.
In this stanza, He then recalls about being with her in “nights like this one.” Where he enjoyed spending every second of it with her and holding her in his arms. He remembers the moment he kissed her under the endless sky which he hoped their relationship would be and last forever. Here, the reader gets a hint about how Neruda remembers all the positive ad happy times when they were both together