n “The bullet, In Its Hunger” Ross Gay uses personification to describe the brutal shooting of a seventeen year old boy. What is so powerful about this poem is that instead of writing from the point of view of the friend helping him or a bystander he is writing about what the bullet is doing to the seventeen year old. The themes in this poem relate to the themes in Against Which because it discusses violence. Violence is a recurring topic in this book and shows up in poems like “Postcard: lynching of an Unidentified Man, circa 1920”, “Man Tries to Commit Suicide With a Crossbow” and “Dial”. Gay’s choice to make the bullet the central focus of the poem is unique and interesting because at first read it feels like it is making light of the violence but upon rereading the poem it is clear that the poet’s intent was different. The poem dives head first into the use of figurative language and continues it through the poem. Using the gun as the killer instead of a person drives at a larger issue that needs to be addressed in the United States, which is gun violence. When this topic comes up something that a lot of people say is that its not guns that kill people its people that kill people. I think by using the gun as the main subject of the poem Gay is speaking to a larger issue outside of the situation of the seventeen-year-old boy being shot. Gay does make any mention of the person behind the gun and gives no description of that person. The readers are meant to see the gun as the killer. The use of …show more content…
I see strong correlations between the two poems because they are both at face value about horrible violence situations but the poet chooses to write about issues surrounding them. This is a common approach that the poet takes through out the book. He is able to do so effectively because of his strong use of figurative
Kumin creates a conventionally formatted poem that recounts the narrator's fall from pacifist to murderer. The uniform format creates an acceptable structure
The similarities are prolific in their presence in certain parts of the novel, the very context of both stories shows similarities, both are dealing with an oppressed factor that is set free by an outsider who teaches and challenges the system in which the oppressed are caught.
A question that arises in almost any medium of art, be it music, film or literature, is whether or not the depiction of violence is merely gratuitous or whether it is a legitimate artistic expression. There can be no doubt that Michael Ondaatje's long poem The Collected Works of Billy the Kid is a violent work, but certain factors should be kept in mind before passing it off as an attempt to shock and titillate; certainly, the poem does both of these, but they are not the primary purpose of the work. For one thing, social context needs to be considered; Billy lived in the "Wild West", a time associated with range wars, shoot-outs and great train robberies. The entire legend of Billy the Kid has been built around his criminal activities and notorious reputation; indeed, the more popular this myth becomes, the more people he is accused of having murdered. If anything, it was a cultural fascination with violence that "created" the legend, perhaps even more so than anything the "real" Billy ever did. Michael Ondaatje comments on this phenomenon and actually offers an alternative vision of who Billy the Kid was; perhaps he was not just a blood-thirsty killer but a man who, due to circumstance and human nature, was continually being pushed over the edge. Ondaatje is more concerned with the motivations behind the acts of violence than the acts of violence themselves: "A motive? some reasoning we can give to explain all this violence. Was there a source for all this? yup -" (54). If they shock, it is to shock the readers out of complicity and encourage them to think about the nature of violence and their own capacity for it.
Dubus, Andre. "Killings." Meyer, Michael. In The Bedford Introduction to Literature. Ed. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. 107 - 120.
Emily Dickerson’s poem, “My Life Stood – A Loaded Gun” is about a gun which is a personification of it's owner. The pleasure the gun takes in violence represents its owner's pleasure in violence.
... overall themes, and the use of flashbacks. Both of the boys in these two poems reminisce on a past experience that they remember with their fathers. With both poems possessing strong sentimental tones, readers are shown how much of an impact a father can have on a child’s life. Clearly the two main characters experience very different past relationships with their fathers, but in the end they both come to realize the importance of having a father figure in their lives and how their experiences have impacted their futures.
The poetry by these two poets creates several different images, both overall, each with a different goal, have achieved their purposes. Though from slightly different times, they can both be recognized and appreciated as poets who did not fear the outside, and were willing to put themselves out there to create both truth and beauty.
The effect of the repetition of the sentence “America is a gun” throughout this poem emphasizes the speaker's point of view of what image best represents America. It stresses that America is best represented with a violent and threatening object. Guns are detrimental weapons. Therefore, calling a country “a gun” is an insult. Thus, the repetition of the sentence “America is a gun” plays an essential role in conveying the author’s theme that the default of the united states is the lack of regulation of firearms.
..., they are somewhat similar in comparison because they both have an inevitable ending, death. Both of the poems also used rhythm to give the reader a better insight and experience. The use of rhythm helps to set the tone right away. The use of symbolism and tone helped to convey an overall theme with both of the poems.
“Here bullet” is a poem by Brian Turner in which the persona is struggling to coup with the situation in which he finds himself. In this poem the persona is able to establish the low point in which they have reached with lines such as “If a body is what you want, / Then here is bone and gristle and flesh.” (LL 1-2). This line establishes right from the onset of the poem that the persona is at wits in. The poem could leave a first time reader of it wondering how the persona reached this point. This point in which the persona is fantasying about death with lines like “Here is where I complete the word you bring/ Hissing through the air, here is where I moan” (LL 10-11).
..., the content and form has self-deconstructed, resulting in a meaningless reduction/manifestation of repetition. The primary focus of the poem on the death and memory of a man has been sacrificed, leaving only the skeletal membrane of any sort of focus in the poem. The “Dirge” which initially was meant to reflect on the life of the individual has been completely abstracted. The “Dirge” the reader is left with at the end of the poem is one meant for anyone and no one. Just as the internal contradictions in Kenneth Fearing’s poem have eliminated the substantial significance of each isolated concern, the reader is left without not only a resolution, but any particular tangible meaning at all. The form and content of this poem have quite effectively established a powerful modernist statement, ironically contingent on the absence and not the presence of meaning in life.
similarities that are inevitably beyond mere coincidence. One could surmise that both of these stories might have a basis in common historical occurrence. However, despite the fact that both of these works discuss a common topic, the portrayal of this event is quite different. Like identical twins raised in different cultures, the expressions of these works are products of their environment.
I found that throughout this poem there was much symbolism within it. Identifying that it was written in first person form showed that this poem relates to the author on a personal basis, and that it was probably written to symbolize his life. But when talking about people’s lives, you can conclude that people’s lives are generally and individually very diffe...
These two authors are very similar. Both use dark, surrealistic language. Both men show different aspects of the descent into madness. Also both men use a descriptive, intelligent writing style. Instead of appealing to your emotions, or telling you what you should be feeling, they describe what is happening. Their descriptions may induce certain emotions, such as disgust, fear, or sadness, but they appeal first to the mind. They appeal first to the mind, and when the mind dictates to the heart that this is wrong, or strange, then the heart stirs and provides the appropriate emotion. Their writing styles may have their differences, but on the whole they are more alike than they are different.
a bit of irony in it. The two poems are first hand accounts of the