“Fire is catching and if we burn, then you burn with us!” A powerful quote from a popular book series and movie Mockingjay that sums up the meaning of this poem quite nicely if you think about it. The spread of this powerful emotion is going fast if our hearts burn then yours will too once we are all connected and able to feel for each other.“I’ll bleed so much you’ll be bleeding, all of us bleeding in and out like it’s breathing” An interesting concept, by bleeding you can cause others to bleed. By feeling pain you can cause others to feel pain. Through examining diction, appeal, tone, and other literary figures it is clear that Carmen Giménez Smith is trying to help people become more compassionate towards one another using her poem “Bleeding …show more content…
In this poem Smith uses the saying of a bleeding heart to show her immense pain and so others can relate but there is also a hidden meaning that most people don’t find upon a first glance. If you look up bleeding heart in a dictionary it explains that to be a bleeding heart you are “dangerously soft hearted” she chose this phrase to help prove her point that you can never be too soft hearted or too compassionate. She uses her words very carefully, choosing the lesser known definitions of the words. Once you find out the true meaning behind the words she chooses you can realize what her poem is about. She also uses very simple words that are easy to understand so her message can reach and be understood by everyone who reads it but only the people who truly care can get the full meaning out of what she is implying. For example, she uses the word choke. When most people think of the word choke they think of choking on a piece of food or not being able to breathe. When Smith uses the word choke she is using the definition “to suppress a feeling or emotion” She uses it in this line of her poem, “My heart rises up in me, becomes a cork of me and I choke on it” She is explaining how her pain rises up and she wants to let it free but she can’t she has to suppress this feeling because the world will not accept her “dangerously soft heart”. Another example is how she uses the word heart. Many people think she means just her heart …show more content…
She uses it in one phrase that gets repeated over and over but most everything other than that is pretty literal. the phrase that is the most figurative is of a “bleeding heart” She uses this literally in the sense that our heart bleed constantly circulating our body with the blood it needs but she tries to use a “bleeding heart” in as many ways as she can. As previously explained she uses it to mean compassion and empathy and sympathy which are all connected. She also uses it to explain her sorrows and her immense pain. Another way she uses this is by, using it as in a way that she is leaving blood behind on the streets and steps of city hall and in that pizza parlor she most likely did not actually bleed in those places but how she left it behind could mean that she changed someone’s perspective or she left an impact or helped someone realize and help out with her purpose. Another line in her poem that also uses figurative language would be when she says, “my sloppy heart a sponge filled with blood read to squeeze onto any circumstance.” She shares her readiness to share whether she is able to control it or not. She is ready to face the outcome. She is giving us a warning of what is
The poem explains her hardships. Reading poetry is different from reading prose because you really have to dig deeper and study harder. A poem is not always straight forward like many other writings. You have to use context clues and understand imagery, tone, and sense. Summarizing a poem becomes difficult if you do not re-read several times. I learned that figurative language and lifestyle really tells a great story. Language especially helps you understand what is going on between the lines. Overall, family is always there at the end of the day. Sometimes situations get tough, but there is always a light at the end of the
In the poem “Self-Pity’s Closet” by Michelle Boisseu, the speaker’s main conflict is self pity, and the author used diction and imagery to show the effects that the conflict has on the speaker. Phrases like “secret open wounds,” (3) show the effects with the word “secret” meaning pain that others are not noticing, which leads up to the speaker getting hurt, but no one indicating to notice it. Another effect is the speaker becoming more self concerning and thinking more about her negatives. This effect portrays through “night raining spears of stars,” (19) because night tends to be the time when people have the most thoughts about themselves and also the word “spears” make up an image of pain piercing through the speaker. “Tangy molasses of
Army veteran Brian Turner, knows a thing or two about the fears of war. Turner served for 7 years. He was deployed to Iraq for a year, and in 1999-2000 had been deployed to Bosnia-Herzegovina. In his poem “Here, Bullet” the bullet embodies fear that shows valiance through word choice and personification.
Theodore Roethke manipulates our emotions in this poem using literary convention. A Waltz is a lighthearted, easily accessible dance. In a waltz, a couple sways back and forth as they go in a circle. Our emotions of this poem seem to follow this same path as we can see comforting and frightening images at the same time in this poem making us go in circles on whether this poem is about a boy dancing with his father, or a boy fighting his father. An example of this “waltz” we have in this poem is in the first stanza as we get the frightening image of “The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy” (Line 1-2). Then he follows with “we romped,” thus undercutting the serious tone that we are given from the first stanza; however, the romping is giving seriousness immediately when the pans slide from the kitchen shelves and “The mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself.” Another part that can be taken in either a positive or a negative reading is when the poem reads, “The hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle.” This can mean that his father was a hardworking man whose hands are altered from working long hours as a grafter, or this could mean that his hand was battered because it is the same hand being used to beat him. This gives us yet another spin on our emo...
During the poem he writes of “loops of her hair”, and all I can think about is when I make loops with my own hair and play with it. Other than a very relatable imagery in the poem, it is also about love, which is almost always captivating to read about. While I read this poem I felt as though a man is not sure if he is ready to love, but he is being told that if not yet in love then he is wasting his time. The poem makes it feel like there is never a wrong time to begin love, and that it is all up to the
Harper begins the poem by detailing the start of the speaker’s relationship with a man, developing it through the use of metaphor and concrete diction. From the first few lines of the poem, the reader learns that the relationship was destined to be futile through Harper’s use of metaphor: “If when standing all alone/ I cried for bread a careless world/ pressed
Although the little girl doesn’t listen to the mother the first time she eventually listens in the end. For example, in stanzas 1-4, the little girl asks if she can go to the Freedom March not once, but twice even after her mother had already denied her the first time. These stanzas show how the daughter is a little disobedient at first, but then is able to respect her mother’s wishes. In stanzas 5 and 6, as the little girl is getting ready the mother is happy and smiling because she knows that her little girl is going to be safe, or so she thinks. By these stanzas the reader is able to tell how happy the mother was because she thought her daughter would be safe by listening to her and not going to the March. The last two stanzas, 7 and 8, show that the mother senses something is wrong, she runs to the church to find nothing, but her daughter’s shoe. At this moment she realizes that her baby is gone. These stanzas symbolize that even though her daughter listened to her she still wasn’t safe and is now dead. The Shoe symbolizes the loss the mother is going through and her loss of hope as well. This poem shows how elastic the bond between the daughter and her mother is because the daughter respected her mother’s wish by not going to the March and although the daughter is now dead her mother will always have her in her heart. By her having her
She is almost explaining the feeling as someone would explain a headache that builds and builds until finally it becomes so intense that one could hardly bare the pain. The word `beating,' as it is written and emphasized with dashes, might remind the reader of a pounding headache. Then the poem seems to turn away from that intensity as the intense feeling of pain begins to fade away:
The first stanza describes the depth of despair that the speaker is feeling, without further explanation on its causes. The short length of the lines add a sense of incompleteness and hesitance the speaker feels towards his/ her emotions. This is successful in sparking the interest of the readers, as it makes the readers wonder about the events that lead to these emotions. The second and third stanza describe the agony the speaker is in, and the long lines work to add a sense of longing and the outpouring emotion the speaker is struggling with. The last stanza, again structured with short lines, finally reveals the speaker 's innermost desire to "make love" to the person the speaker is in love
As Carter opens the poem, he tells how at this point in his life, he still has this essential want for things his own father presented him growing up. In the beginning, he expresses he has this “…pain [he] mostly hide[s], / but [that] ties of blood, or seed, endure” (lines 1-2). These lines voice how he longs for his father and just how painful it is without him at his side. In addition, he still feels “the hunger for his outstretched hand” (4) and a man’s embrace to take [him] in” (5). Furthermore, Carter explains how this “pain” he “feel[s] inside” (3) are also due to his “need for just a word of pr...
There are a couple of similes the author uses in the poem to stress the helplessness she felt in childhood. In the lines, “The tears/ running down like mud” (11,12), the reader may notice the words sliding down the page in lines 12-14 like mud and tears that flowed in childhood days. The speaker compares a...
My first and immediate explanation for the poem was an address from one lover to a loved one, where distance became a factor in their relationship. The lover has it far worse than the desired partner and the solitude builds nothing but longing for this person at a time when his love is the greatest. He says " What have I to say to you when we shall meet?... I am alone" with my head knocked against the sky”. He further asks, “How can I tell if I shall ever love you again as I do now?” There is uncertainty because he is wondering over the next encounter with his loved one. He says, “I lie here thinking of you” and is compelling when he wants the loved one to see him in the 5th stanza and what love is doing to his state of mind. He is hopeless and expresses it by asking questions he is unsure of, conveying his troubled state. Williams enforces imagery along with sound effects to demonstrate the despair of the man in a realm that is almost dreamlike with purple skies,spoiled colors, and birds. Stating he is alone and that his head collides with the sky may underline the man’s confusion. He also uses imagery in the “stain of love as it eats into the leaves”, and saffron horned branches, vivid and easy-to-imagine images that captivate the reader. The line stating “a smooth purple sky” and this stain which is “spoiling the colours of the whole world” easily formulate a very distinct picture. Through consonance words like “eats” and “smears with saffron” become fiercer in the eyes of this lover as they cancel out a “smooth sky”.
The extreme crisis that Bradstreet goes through in losing her house and of her possessions would be detrimental to any human being. The content in this poem reflects the doubts, thought process, and battle Bradstreet had with her faith during this crisis. An example of Bradstreet showing her grief throughout the poem would be as followed: “Then, coming out, beheld a space/The flame consume my dwelling place/and when I could no longer look,/I blest His name that gave and took,” (Bradstreet 11-14). This quote exemplifies Bradstreet’s loss especially with the line “and when I could no longer look” (14). This quote indicates Bradstreet’s immense grief to the point where her eyes cannot bare to look at what causes her pain. Another example of the grief Bradstreet is going through is as followed: “Here stood that trunk, and there that chest,/There lay that store I...
First of all, the poem is very exquisite and dramatic. It appeared imaginable as like I see the blood on the deck, a man crying. Also, from first to last part, speaker’s voice had changed; he hold his captain’s head with deep grief, and eventually he walked weekly through on the deck. The situation of the poem is that a ship is reached to the port. And the people on the ship were exulting
The poet illustrates both her blissfulness and sorrow through the repetition of “In the spring of the year,” and “In the fall of the year” to bring her emotions to life. Overall the poem is well structured. All three of the stanzas contain six lines a piece. The rhyme schemes in the first two stanzas are very similar to each other. Unlike the first two stanzas, the last stanza has a slightly different rhyme scheme and tone. For an example, the first two stanzas follow the AABACC rhyme scheme while the last stanza follows the AABBCC rhyme scheme. The fact that the poet may have chosen to change the tone or rhyme scheme is because she is no longer in a relationship anymore, and is trying to cope with her broken heart. Some may even suggest that whenever the spring or fall season is present, her past tribulations may still be thrown in her face but she is able to move forward with life. Reading lines out of the three stanzas, readers can see what state the speaker was in, whether it was either dealing with a break up or coping with an emotion breakthrough. In the line for an example, “He laughed at all I dared to praise, / And broke my heart, in little ways” (11-12), or “Tis not love’s going to hurt my days / But that it went in little ways” (17-18). Another way to determine how Millay was going through an emotional moment is by some of her word choices. From a common gender stereotype, women are more prone to be emotional