Although it is a short poem, “Casabianca” has no shortage of meaning and criticisms. Zhou Xiaojing provided a quick backstory for the poem that put much of it in perspective and allowed me to dig deeper into Bishop’s potential meaning.
At first, I was not aware that this poem has a dialogue with another poem with the same name written by Felicia Hemans. That poem, much like Bishop, discusses love. Unlike Bishop, Hemans’s poem focuses on one particular form of love which she highly praises: the love of a “young faithful heart” (Hemans). Heman’s poem focuses on a captain, whose last name is Casabianca, who was mortally wounded in a battle in 1798. The boy in the poem his Casabianca’s son and refuses to leave his side, thus both of them die. Xiaojing, in their discussion of the two poems, points out that Heman’s notion of love is one-sided. Heman builds up the boy so much that the other sailor, who have fled the wreckage, are mentioned briefly and without care. Bishop’s poem, however, turns the notion of love on its head when she converses with Heman.
However, all of the aforementioned information comes directly from Xiaojing, and while it is all perfectly valid, I believe there is more to explore with this poem. First, I find it curious that Bishop has the boy standing on the burning deck repeating the “Casabianca” poem. Heman’s picture of the boy is generous. She calls him brave and applauds all of his decisions and even mourns him in the last line. To have this boy, perhaps the same boy, reciting the poem with a “stammering elocution” takes away Heman’s depiction of bravery while allotting that the boy is brave for staying “while the poor ship in flames went down” (PPL, 5). However, this juxtaposition to Heman’s poem allows Bishop’s next stanza to ring truer. The burning boy is not an all-encompassing figure full of love and bravery and little else, but rather a boy attempting to be brave, because of his love for his father, while being terrified; this helps the sailors who have swam away from the ship not seems so heartless and unimportant. They, too, were terrified of the burning ships and decided to swim to safety, but instead of denouncing them as Heman does Bishop understands that their cowardice does
Clint Smith is a writer, teacher, and doctoral candidate in Education at Harvard University with a concentration in Culture, Institutions, and Society. Smith Clint wrote a poem called “Something You should Know.” The poem is about an early job he had in a Petsmart. The poet allows the readers into his personal life, but before he had trouble opening up to people and his work. Moreover, Clint wrote an insight in the poem about relying in anything to feel safe and he says it is the most terrifying thing any person can do.
A less theoretical definition of poetry is, “putting the best words in the best possible order.” A poet may incorporate the theory as follows. The poet may astutely choose words possibly with a double meaning in order to indirectly convey a message, evoke emotions, or to slander. Then, the poet may unconventionally place such words and phrases perhaps out of expected order for the sake of creating a “word picture,” emphasizing the speaker’s feelings, or offering tangibility to the poem. By implementing this idea onto poetic works, the poet will have auspiciously written a superb poem. This theory may be applied to a few of Catullus’s poems specifically “Carmen 5”, “Carmen 8”, and “Carmen 85.” Catullus’s meticulous choice of words and arrangement highlight the central focus of the poem, obliquely criticize traditional Roman law, manipulate the audience’s attitude, transmit the speaker’s emotions, paint “word pictures,” and offer symbolic meaning consequently producing a successful poem.
Abandoned by her mother at three-year-old, married at the age 19, three children at the age of 26, and with only a fifth-grade level education. My mom was in prison for a month after struggling to cross the Mexican border into the United States. My mom came to American seeking a better future where my siblings and I did go hungrier to be able to survive. The poet is describing the word “Migration” that takes a different method in relating what is crossing the border as well as tense perceptive effects that occur when it comes to crossing the border. Rosa Alcala’s poem has persona, metaphor, images and figures speech the author can illustrate the feeling of the poem as attentive vagueness.
In “Conte” by Marilyn Hacker, Cinderella shows the reader a glimpse of her life after the childhood tale ends, a less happier ending than the original story implies. She feels trapped in a constant state of misery and boredom in the royal palace. Without life experience guiding her, Cinderella is in a dilemma caused by her ignorance of the potential consequences of her actions. With the use of irony, structure, and diction, “Conte” shows how innocence and naïveté result in regrettable mistakes that create life experience.
La Migra (pg. 700) is about two young kids (mostly immigrants) playing a game called “La Migra.” In La Migra there are two roles that can be played, the border patrol officer or Mexican maid. The poem is spilt into two main stanzas; each stanza gives you a different point of view. It allows you do play both roles of this game. The first stanza is focus on the role of the border patrol officer. In lines 4-7 of the poem tells you what the border patrol officer would have on the daily basis. This was a jeep, a badge and sunglasses. In the second stanza you play to Mexican maid/ woman. In this stanza you are powerless because you play the immigrant. It gives you a since of being caught in the act of a crime. In my opinion, I feel the theme of this
Lorna Dee Cervantes' poem, “Poema para los Californios Muertos” (“Poem for the Dead Californios”), is a commentary on what happened to the original inhabitants of California when California was still Mexico, and an address to the speaker's dead ancestors. Utilizing a unique dynamic, consistently alternating between Spanish and English, Cervantes accurately represents the fear, hatred, and humility experienced by the “Californios” through rhythm, arrangement, tone, and most importantly, through use of language.
The poem “ Feliks Skrzynecki” communicates to the responders that as a result of the Skrzynecki family migrating to Australia, Peter had lost a significant aspect of his life which was his relationship with his father due to the barriers that had arisen restricting them from proper communication.
The last sentence of the poem, ““There is still murder in your heart” (14), is a powerful claim that suggests that a routine consisting of prayer, communion, or hymn singing will not dissolve the sin of the heart. However, seeing this claim from a different standpoint, this can also suggest that this dull routine is convenient when it comes to preserving an appearance of purity and grace. There is an image in the middle of the poem, “light swords” (7), that possibly represents sharp members of the congregation trying to deceive the church authorities and God. Their comfort to the routine is remarkable because it does not really make a difference at the end; the only thing that truly matters is the masked life they are trying to keep hidden. Readers may consider the arguments presented in this poem as the truth reaching out to the contemporary church and its followers to improve their relationship with
The song, “Hotel California”, by the Eagles, is a very poetic song that uses imagery, and symbolism to bring out the theme in an indirect way of the speaker’s personal issues of life. The Eagles use imagery to set the mood and tone of the song. Along with many aspects of symbolism to input a lot of double meaning throughout the whole song. With both imagery and symbolism incorporated, many fans or people who have heard of this song would believe that the theme of this song is about a lonely traveler trying to break his own temptations.
Richard Blanco is a Cuban- American poet who was given the oppurunity to write an inaugaration poem for Barack Obama's second swearing-in. He wrote a poem titled "One Today" that praised the good and unique things about the United States and also the everyday people who's daily routines help to make America the proud country that it is.
Poetry is a reduced dialect that communicates complex emotions. To comprehend the numerous implications of a ballad, perusers must analyze its words and expressing from the points of view of beat, sound, pictures, clear importance, and suggested meaning. Perusers then need to sort out reactions to the verse into a consistent, point-by-point clarification. Poetry utilizes structures and traditions to propose differential translation to words, or to summon emotive reactions. Gadgets, for example, sound similarity, similar sounding word usage, likeness in sound and cadence are at times used to accomplish musical or incantatory impacts.
Feeling beautiful deals with many factors but it has become incumbent with focus being placed on the physical aspects of person Una Marson writes about beauty and how it drives many women into changing their features and making those features fit into the standard of beauty. Her poem, “Kinky Haired Blues” speaks about that notion, of women wanting to assimilate to what the norm is. Specifically women of ethnic minorities, she talks more about Black Women and the pressure for them to bleach their skin and to iron their hair. Matters such as race are at forefront of the issues in her society and of the society we currently live in today. Una Marson’s poem “Kinky Hair Blues” speaks to the idea of beauty and the standard of beauty. And how many
“I used to rule the world” (line 1), these words of the poem Viva La Vida describe of a fallen king who once ruled almost every piece of land the world had. The song Viva La Vida is a king that once ruled the world but, consequently lost his pride and power. The book, The Scarlet Pimpernel, is about the French revolution and, ordinarily how the people took over the aristocrats. In Viva La Vida and The Scarlet Pimpernel, each author uses personification to portray the idea that taking too much pride in yourself or overestimating yourself can lead to fatal consequences.
I want you to stop and think about tone in day to day conversations. It mostly depends on the body language, volume of voice, and pitch of the person speaking. Written poems, on the other hand, develop their tone through imagery, language use, and form. To show this, I will be using the poem “Tonight I can write” by analyzing how Pablo Neruda works with distant imagery, nostalgic past tense, and repetitive form to develop a grief-filled tone. Through my analysis, I will be mentioning that the author generates loneliness in the persona. I expect the reader to agree that solitude is a state naturally feared and unwanted by humankind because of our undeniable biological drive to reproduce and survive, which requires the company of others. With that being said, I hope that we can assume loneliness is essentially connected to grief.
Some of the poems and essays I have read during this class were relatable to me. Being away from college, I have struggled with not being at home. I have become a different person when I am at school, but when I am home, I feel like I am my normal self again. Some of these authors of the poems and essays that I have read throughout this class has struggled with being somewhere where they don’t belong and that they are someone else when they are not home. Unlike the other poems and essays we have read throughout the course. I enjoyed reading the ones about “home” because I actually understood what they are going through and that I can relate. Some of these poems and essays include “Going Home” by Maurice Kenny, Postcard from Kashmir”, by Agha Shahid Ali, “Returning” by Elias Miguel Munoz and “Hometown” by Luis Cabalquinto. All of these poems deal with duality.