Steel and Poem

|Spend about 1 hour on this section. Think carefully about the poems before you write your answer. |

d. Through his use of imagery devices throughout the poem, the author’s main message that

Stanza two of the poem takes time to reveal what each individual notch or marking on the tally stick represents in their actual lives. The most intricate carving described represents the day of their

The use of symbolism and imagery is beautifully orchestrated in a magnificent dance of emotion that is resonated throughout the poem. The two main ideas that are keen to resurface are that of personal growth and freedom. Furthermore, at first glimpse this can be seen as a simple poem about a women’s struggle with her counterpart. However, this meaning can be interpreted more profoundly than just the causality of a bad relationship.

Poetry is a form of art and literature that allows a reader to feel what the author wants them to. Pat Mora is a Mexican-American woman that wrote the two poems “Sonrisas” and “La Migra”. “Sonrisas” is about the two types women that are seen in two different rooms, while “La Migra” is about a typical exchange between the Border Patrol and a Mexican maid attempting to crossing the border from Mexico into the United States. Both of these poems show the reader what it is like to be Mexican-American and describes the experiences each speaker in the poem is having.

“Legal Alien” by Pat Mora is a poem that describes the life of a Mexican American girl, she was born in America but her parents are Mexican. In the poem Mora mentioned that she is “Bi-lingual, Bi-cultural, able to slip from How is life to Me estan volviendo loca” (Mora 370). She is caught between two cultures. She feels that she does not belong to any society, people from America see her in different ways “viewed by Anglos as perhaps exotic, perhaps inferior, definitely different” (Mora 370), but also Mexicans have a different opinion “ viewed by Mexicans as alien, (their eyes says “you may speak Spanish but you are not like me”)” (Mora 370). In this poem exists the cultural border, she does not fit either in America or Mexico “An American to Mexicans a Mexican to America” (Mora 370). She is confused about her culture, and has a cultural border problem.

Pat Mora easily obtains the audience’s attention by stating that the two characters will be playing a game. La Migra, is the Spanish translation from border patrol in English. It is often heard and used in the media to instill fear in immigrants in the U.S. towards deportation and troubling means. “Let’s play La Migra” (Mora 528) is the first stanza presented in the poem. Having this as the first line, it makes readers wonder. What game is it? How is it played? What does La Migra mean? (to non-Spanish speakers). It grabs and keeps your attention right form the get go because it gets you thinking about what game is going to be played and wanting to find out more of the game itself along with the rules and players. While continuing to read, more is introduced and us readers find out what kind of game it is. Then it bares the question, why would this be considered a game? Immigrants today are living in constant fear of being deported and taken back to their homeland where one can assume escaped life there in hopes of a better life in the states. While this is a real-life situation that people deal with daily, the author turns it into a game to interest the readers more and give insight into what is going on with border patrol.

They help they author by portraying accurate images that they author could convey to readers. Doty used metaphor to find the central claim of the passage and poem, repetition to emphasize on the importance of certain ideas, personnification to light up the tone of the passage, and contrast to bring in attention and to guide the readers to think. Metaphor is commonly used as a hint to the readers, but to Doty, it served as a key to exploring one’s insight on certain pictures or experiences. He claim that it was “metaphor” that helped him find the purpose of the passage Soul On

This poem tends to reveal character when it described the two points of view between the main characters. “Let’s play La Migra, I’ll be the Border Patrol. You be the Mexican maid… Get ready, get set, run. (Mora 1190-1191). This whole first stanza implies that the border patrol will have it’s advantages and characteristics over the mexican maid and it doesn’t give any of her advantages, just pure weaknesses. It was trying to say that the mexican maid was doomed and the border patrol had full power over her. “Let’s play La Migra, You’ll be the Border Patrol. I’ll be the Mexican woman… you do not understand. Get ready. (Mora 1191). Then in the whole second stanza, things start to turn around. Now the Mexican maid gets full power over the border patrol. It gives all the advantages of

2. When reading the notes, they display their importance to Trethewey’s poem as a means of displaying

In the poem, "The Race" by Sharon Olds, she conveys an aggravated and an impatient tone. The author portrays this tone through the use of repetition, imagery, and personification. The author as well conveys the tone through her punctuation. Through the use of her repetition it proved that she was worried not being able to reach her father in time and so she repeats the phrase "...

I did receive your book and I'm pretty sure I'll enjoy it, so thank you for the follow up, and to answer your question, I found out about you guys by chance I guess. I had just purchase my first kobo reader and was just browsing around to see what book to buy and the free episode of The Beam pop up, so I gave it a try and I loved it.

The main observation readers could take from this poem is that the “lower” individual has to take care of and pick up after the white man. It is even hinted at that the poems the mother chant rival the alleged master of poetry’s own works.

The border between the United States of America and Mexico always had been always a theme for a lot of discussions. And, in the book “Sunshine/Noir II” Juanita Lopez and Michael Cheno described, through texts, their point of view about the topic. Both authors represent that the control of the border has become way more restrict and militarized. In that sense, Michael Wickert presents his idea in a poem form, text named “The border Is a Fight”, that describes the dramas of a Mexican family that has to cross the border every day in a hope to get a better future. Whereas, Juanita Lopez demonstrates it through an essay that uses personal narratives of the author’s relatives to illustrate her point of view. Therefore, the both authors exploit their point of views using different text forms, and figurative images, like metaphors and personification, for delivering their ideas in the way they do.

The meaning of the poem is to tell what Ha and her families feeling are about going to school/work. The tone of the poem is unhappy and one technique the author uses to convey unhappiness is the use of the word,”waste”(page 136).This word conveys unhappiness because waste is usually used in a sentence to describe something bad or something you regret. A second technique the author uses to convey unhappiness is the event were Ha complaints about being the only ten year old in fourth grade,”I’m a ten year old in the fourth grade, when everyone else is nine. ”(page 137).This event conveys unhappiness because she is upset that she has to be in a room full of kids younger than her, and most likely she is as well as or better educated than most of