“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste the experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience” – Eleanor Roosevelt. Living life to the fullest and experiencing life can be seen or taken in different ways. Sometimes fear can prevent us from living with an open-mindedness of what we already have. Can we imply expressively to understand that soundness of Barbara Ras’s poem on life, love and Carpe Diem? Emotion is set prominently in Ras’s tone. Ras’s implicates the gentleness and sweet innocence of life’s treasures. Ras states in the beginning of the poem “You can have the touch of a single eleven-year-old finger on your cheek, waking you up at one a.m. to say the hamster is back” (Ras, 1997). As a mother, I connected deeply with this poem because I have been woken up by my child years ago because he lost his hamster. This had me reflect upon my life and the innocence of my son being sad that his hamster was lost. Ras utilized phrases that created an allusion for the audience which you were able to understand the meaning in which she was providing. “You can have a purr of the cat and the soulful …show more content…
“You can’t bring back the dead, but you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands as if they meant to spend a lifetime together” (Ras, 1997). I would think we have all experienced this human element in our lives about forgiving and letting go to move on. Do on to others as you would want do on to you. Ras implicates that life is too short and we should not dwell on things. Remembering the good memories and letting go helps us grow and live life better. Ras also brings the human element into poem stating “You can’t count on grace to pick you out of crowd” (Ras, 1997). Grace is about elegance and a skill which we all need to acquire as an attribute. We need to find that grace within ourselves and we control that knowledge and
After a first reading of Marie Howe’s What the Living Do, many complicated feelings come out of my mind. In her poem, Marie Howe captures the human behavior that makes people obsessed with trivial issues until they overlook the important things that they could do to make their lives more enjoyable. Those situations actually have happened on most of us today. In most cases, people will procrastinate over simple chores and tasks instead of taking action and accomplishing these tasks. While many people will sulk over how unfortunate they are, they don't realize that they are in a better off than many other people. As technology affects every aspect of our lives in the modern world, it becomes extremely difficult to get off from the technological
Both awe-inspiring and indescribable is life, the defined “state of being” that historians and scholars alike have been trying to put into words ever since written language was first created. And in the words of one such intellectual, Joshua J. Marine, “Challenges are what make life interesting; overcoming them is what makes life meaningful”. Essentially, he is comparing life to a bowl of soup. Without challenges or hardship into which we can put forth effort and show our potential, it becomes a dull and flavorless broth. But for characters in novels like Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, the difficulties and trials that we all must face can transfigure the mundane liquid mixture of existence into a vibrant and fulfilling gumbo. The protagonists of these works are two strong-willed and highly admirable women, who prevail in the face of overwhelming odds stacked in everyone’s favor but theirs. In their trying periods of isolation brought about by cold and unwelcoming peers, particularly men, they give their lives meaning by simply pushing forward, and living to tell the tale.
In “Late Poem to My Father” by Sharon Olds, the speaker, who is likely a stand-in for Olds herself, takes us through the relationship her father had with her grandfather. She then relates this to her relationship with her father. Starting with the title, the word “Late” could suggest that the father has died or it could suggest how she didn’t fully value her father’s love until recently. The poem is written in free verse with no particular pattern or rhyme scheme. There are no stanza breaks, but there is a lot of enjambment throughout the poem. Olds’s syntax and placement of enjambment compliments the poem the whole way through. The first word of the poem is “Suddenly”, as if she hadn’t thought of her father in a long time. The poem can be
Grace is freely given favor or pardon, unmerited, unconditional god-like love. This grace has been shown in the many instances of unmerited love and forgiveness freely given in the book, The Grace That Keeps This World. In the beginning of the story, Kevin and his Dad, Gary Hazen, were at odds with one another. After the tragic accident where Gary Hazen accidentally shot his son, and Officer Roy’s fiancé, Gary David, Kevin, and his father, Gary Hazen, and Officer Roy, all extended grace toward one another. Then Gary extended grace toward himself. This grace helped to emotionally and physically sustain them, hence the title The Grace That Keeps This World.
Throughout the lives of most people on the planet, there comes a time when there may be a loss of love, hope or remembrance in our lives. These troublesome times in our lives can be the hardest things we go through. Without love or hope, what is there to live for? Some see that the loss of hope and love means the end, these people being pessimistic, while others can see that even though they feel at a loss of love and hope that one day again they will feel love and have that sense of hope, these people are optimistic. These feelings that all of us had, have been around since the dawn of many. Throughout the centuries, the expression of these feelings has made their ways into literature, novels, plays, poems, and recently movies. The qualities of love, hope, and remembrance can be seen in Emily Bronte’s and Thomas Hardy’s poems of “Remembrance” “Darkling Thrush” and “Ah, Are you Digging on my Grave?”
Amazing Grace is a legendary song” published in 1779”(www.princeton.edu/-achaney/tmve/wiki100/docs/Amazing-Grace.html) that is also a poem where there are verses in this poem that suggest that the composer John Newton (1725-1807) was going through a pivotal point in his life and he felt that by writing these harmonic verses in rhythmic metaphors could captivate and inspire not only those that read “Amazing Grace” but especially everyone that listened to its meaning. Conviction can come at a time when it seems you are most likely going to die from an act of God, and all the wrong that someone has done becomes a consciously enormous burden when they start to consider what the after life may have as punishment or reward. There are many different responses to this poem. Most of the responses are positive, but when you look at the author John Newton’s life you will start begin to understand the gist of what he is saying and the meaning behind them. The point of view, tone, and content are some elements that prompt some very interesting responses that may alter ...
"Numbers" by Mary Cornish is a simple and uplifting poem about numbers personified into having free will. The first stanza discusses how numbers are willing to count whatever they please, and how nothing misses the opportunity to be counted. Stanza two refers to the domesticity, or the feeling of home and family, of numbers and how addition correlates to the feeling of home. Next comes multiplication which mainly about a school of fish that breeds beneath the shadows of a boat. The following stanza refers to subtraction is never a loss, but addition in a different place.
As the first poem in the book it sums up the primary focus of the works in its exploration of loss, grieving, and recovery. The questions posed about the nature of God become recurring themes in the following sections, especially One and Four. The symbolism includes the image of earthly possessions sprawled out like gangly dolls, a reference possibly meant to bring about a sense of nostalgia which this poem does quite well. The final lines cement the message that this is about loss and life, the idea that once something is lost, it can no longer belong to anyone anymore brings a sense...
Louise Bogan points out in her poem that life is rarely as predictable as we might like, but it must be faced, regardless of our fears. Like the speaker, we may be surprised by the gentleness and peace we find when we face life head on, offer it our love, and surrender to its power--just as it surrenders to ours.
“A Story about the Body”, a prose poem by Robert Hass, is literally about a man who supposedly loves a woman but then finds out about her health conditions and then changes his mind. This poem, when I read it, was more like a short story than a poem. The poem uses imagery and a variety of adjectives which allow the reader to put themselves in the story as if they were watching it happen.
At a glance, the poem seems simplistic – a detailed observance of nature followed by an invitation to wash a “dear friend’s” hair. Yet this short poem highlights Bishop’s best poetic qualities, including her deliberate choice in diction, and her emotional restraint. Bishop progresses along with the reader to unfold the feelings of both sadness and joy involved in loving a person that will eventually age and pass away. The poem focuses on the intersection of love and death, an intersection that goes beyond gender and sexuality to make a far-reaching statement about the nature of being
At a glance, the poem seems simplistic – a detailed observance of nature followed by an invitation to wash a “dear friend’s” hair. Yet this short poem highlights Bishop’s best poetic qualities, including her deliberate choice in diction, and her emotional restraint. Bishop progresses along with the reader to unfold the feelings of both sadness and joy involved in loving a person that will eventually age and pass away. The poem focuses on the intersection of love and death, an intersection that goes beyond gender and sexuality to make a far-reaching statement about the nature of being
The speaker started the poem by desiring the privilege of death through the use of similes, metaphors, and several other forms of language. As the events progress, the speaker gradually changes their mind because of the many complications that death evokes. The speaker is discontent because of human nature; the searching for something better, although there is none. The use of language throughout this poem emphasized these emotions, and allowed the reader the opportunity to understand what the speaker felt.
In the poem “Alzheimer’s” by Kelly Cherry, the author puts a lot of emphasis on the tone of the poem. This aspect of the poem seems to be very important considering that it changes as the poem continues until the end. The change in tone is very clear from the beginning to the last few words.
Emily Dickinson is an American poet who encourages individuals to embrace the idea of death rather than fearing it. Having grown up in a city with a very high mortality rate Dickinson accepts how common death is in the natural life cycle and depicts this in her poetry. Although a very isolated individual, Dickinson is able to describe her acceptance and comfort with the idea of death in her poems and convey them to her readers. Dickinson’s poems encourage readers to live every moment as it were their last because it is unknown when death will come. Have courage when facing death, rather than fearing it. Dickinson illustrates that death is not something to be feared or desired but something that is natural.