The Sophistication Found in the Simplicity of Tate James Tate in his collection, Memoirs of the Hawk, presents believable yet absurd characters in the most vulnerable of settings and uses them to push humanistic truths that come full circle at his poems closing lines which work as epiphanies. The connection is collected in the sense that the direction and format is concrete for every poem, narratively or structurally there isn’t anything sophisticated going on that was presented in Dorianne Laux’s Facts About the Moon or Jamaal May’s Hum. This poeticness found in Tate is his ability to mask social or personal issues through humor and abstraction subtlety and with a degree of simplicity capitalizes Tate’s style in this collection. He …show more content…
Tate delivers the poem in a fascinating perspective, instead of that of the outcast he describes the perspective of those that feel the outcasts are intrusive to their own way of life. Something that they do not understand or accept seem less significant to them or un-superior. This ideology is masked under the representation of the town’s seaweed eating inhabitants. Tate’s signature talent to approach serious issues of society with weirdness and humor shines most appropriately here. Racial stereotypes and the accepting of one’s culture is guised in the everyday activities and life habits of these “seaweed eaters”. It starts simply by the narrator criticizing the food that these people eat, “There are these people in town who only/eat seaweed,” (Lines 1-2). Then it begins to make a progression to the color of their skin, language, as well as their beliefs. The voice of the narrator is also intentionally judgmental to match the mentality of how everyone else in that town feels toward these strange people. The narrator ends on a bit of a harsh note by labeling these people as “brininess” which means salty, which means looking stupid. Interesting enough the seaweed makes a return image from the beginning lines. As in the same case with Jessie’s sandwich and Africa in the earlier poem, the seaweeds return in the end has a changed meaning, “seeking out/the seaweed source, the packs of carnivores/parting to let them through, not wanting to be/smudged by their brininess.” (Lines 13-16). The brininess is the guise for the seaweed which not only characterizes its flavor but characterizes the popular view towards these people. The components of the seaweed here act as a double meaning, one being literal and the other as a
"Nighthawks" (1942), a famous painting from Edward Hopper, has been the subject of many poems. Most of the poems attempt to tell the story of the four people painted in the scene. The scene portrays a diner during the night or early morning before the sun comes up, and it is viewed outside on a dark street as someone is looking in. There is nothing threatening about this scene and it suggests there is no danger around the corner; it gives the people in this painting a kind of serenity. The painting is an oil and canvas work and set in the 1930’s or 1940’s. I can tell by the diner’s architecture, clothing, hairstyles and hats of the customers, also by the five-cent cigar sign. This diner looks like it should be
The novel Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott is a book that was written in order to provide “Some instructions on writing and life.” Lamott published the book in 1994 in hopes to share the secrets of what it is truly like to be a writer, as both a warning and as encouragement. Bird by Bird shares with the reader the ironic truth of being a struggling writer through personal experience and humorous stories. Lamott uses memories from her past to help illustrate her points and to help the reader get to know who she is, not only as a writer, but as a person. The author focuses on the true struggles and benefits of being a writer while using metaphors and analogies to express her points, she also wraps her life stories around almost every writing tip.
Throughout history, the story of womankind has evolved from struggles to achievements, while some aspects of the lives of women have never changed. Poet Dorianne Laux writes about the female condition, and women’s desire to be married and to have a home and children. She also seems to identify through her poetry with the idea that women tend to idealize the concept of marriage and settling down and she uses her poetry to reach out to the reader who may have similar idyllic views of marriage or the married lifestyle. Though Dorianne Laux’s poem “Bird” reads very simply, it is actually a metaphor for an aspect of this female condition.
Galens, David. The. " Vol. 41" x.75" x.75" Poetry Criticism. Detroit: Gale, 2003, p691-696.
Young love , a thrilling time for many . A time in where blinded young-lings cross a field unknown . A field in which one must undergo challenges and temptations . Here we have a young girl that encounters a young man , a typical boy meets girl scenarios , So it would seem . The desire to be loved can drive a person to do the craziest of things ; we are all walking proof of that . As young children one learns to express emotion through every gesture and every facial expression , through that process one realizes ones self hatred with rejection . Living in a world in which we strive to be accepted and crave to be desired . In society each gender faces different experiences ; as a man one expects a provider , a leader , a hunter and as a women
In this paper, I will attempt to make Gunn’s voice heard according to how I interpret the poem, and by doing so I hope to show how relevant this poem was to the decade it was written in, the 1980’s. I also will explore some other possibilities of how this may have related to or affected Gunn directly. In other words, what factors may have been responsible for his writing this poem.
Meinke, Peter. “Untitled” Poetry: An Introduction. Ed. Michael Meyer. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s 2010. 89. Print
Poemhunter Inc., n.d. Web. The Web. The Web. 4 Dec. 2013. Davis, Arthur P. “Hughes.”
Poetry and Drama. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 9nd ed. New York: Longman, 2005. Pgs 389-392
Ramazani, Jahan, Richard Ellmann, and Robert O 'Clair. The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003. Print.
In a human life, there are so many relationships like the one between husband and wife, between mother and child, or between brother and sister. Besides those relationships, there can also be a connection between human and nature. Nature is comprised of a variety of things, such as plants, landscape, other features, and animals. There are plenty of relationships between natures, like relation with animal and plants. The book H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald talks about the relationship between her and a hawk. She got the hawk after her dad die. There is a strong connection between them that helped her got over the grief of losing her father. In the book I and Thou by Martin Buber, he talks about the I and Thou relationship between human and
Mays, Kelly. "Poems for Further Study." Norton Introduction to Literature. Eleventh Edition. New York: W.W. Norton and Company Inc., 2013. 771-772. Print.
Ellmann, Richard and O'Clair, Robert, ed. The Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry, Second Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1988.
1 Modern Poetry. Third Edition. Norton. I am a naysayer. 2003. The 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the Williams, William.
The poet uses examples of imagery in this poem. The poet uses a simile in the first line of the first stanza to start off the poem. The simile she uses is ''the skin cracks like a pod''. The opening of the poem gives a clear message that something is severely wrong. A pod cracks with barely any resistance so the comparison to the skin is a unreserved statement outlining how easily the skin is. There is obviously a drought or a vast undersupply of water. The opening surprises the reader and gives an indication of what is to come. The poet uses a short and abrupt line which is effective