When I read “Making the Jam Without You” by Maxine Kumin, my initial thought was that the poem was simply about the mom making jam and wishing her daughter was there with her. As it states, “I am putting a dream in your head.” After reading through the poem a couple more times it started to make more sense to me, and I realised that it wasn't just about the mom missing her daughter, but about the mom sending a memory to her daughter of her childhood. The mom just wanted to remind her daughter of a good time from the past, and wishing that she will have more good times in the future. The mom has a close connection with her daughter. I can see this close connection from this statement in the poem, “...good smells where we have bumped hips and cracked the cupboards with our talk while the stove top danced with pots…” In this line it becomes more clear to me of a deeper meaning than just her mother making jam. It shows the special bond she shares with her daughter, and it reveals a much deeper meaning than my first thoughts about the poem. …show more content…
The speaker wants the daughter to keep the tradition alive and to keep on making their family's jam. The mom is wishing that her daughter will use the memories they have shared, as she goes out into the big world ahead of her, and also hopes she will grow this same deep relationship with her own children. The mom really just wants to know that her daughter is happy in life, and she wanted to share a good time they had together in hopes she will have the same type of memories with her kids. You can see this in the poem where it states, “I see you cutting fresh bread to spread it with the bright royal fur.” Here the mother is dreaming of her daughter in the future carrying on the happy and special tradition she once had with her
The speaker’s personal emotions emphasizes the poem’s theme since although his father is no longer with him in this world, the memory of his father will always live in his heart. Throughout the poem, Lee uses the sky, underground, and the heart to symbolize imagination, reality, and memory—emphasizing the poem’s theme of the remembrance of a loved one. Lee also uses repetition to convey the meaning of Little Father. The speaker repeatedly mentions “I buried my father…Since then…” This repetition displays the similarity in concepts, however the contrast in ideas. The first stanza focuses on the spiritual location of the speaker’s father, the second stanza focuses on the physical location of the father, and the third stanza focuses on the mental location of the speaker’s father. This allows the reader to understand and identify the shift in ideas between each stanza, and to connect these different ideas together—leading to the message of despite where the loved one is (spiritually or physically), they’ll always be in your heart. The usage of word choice also enables the reader to read in first person—the voice of the speaker. Reading in the voice of the speaker allows the reader to see in the perspective of the speaker and to connect with the speaker—understand
n the college essay, “ Chunky Peanut Butter” Jam Gregory describes himself as “ the chunky peanut butter”. Meaning that he feels that he is like the heart of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. His article was certainly the most compelling out of the other two. A few reasons are, he uses good word choices and figurative language, shows he does different activities, and how he likes to help people.
The text begins with the speaker musing about how her lineage is related to that of an album cover with one solid identity. In an album, each song forms an idea that is encapsulated in a large pool of its sister tracks to form one singular unit containing an idea or focus. By referring to her family as an album, Harper has directly stated that her family is deeply connected. Above the poem is the subtitle “for my father,” which means that Harper’s message is connected to her father the most. This metaphor strikes even further into the
Then she goes on to say how the grandfather is always sitting by the fireplace, silently. The relationship between father and son seems stale, bitter, and distant. This offers a feeling of neglect Olds implies that, the speaker's father was neglected constantly by the grandfather. The poem starts off strong and reads as if the speaker is sad thinking about her father and the relationship he had with the grandfather. Olds states, “You moved through the heavy air/in your physical beauty, a boy of seven,/helpless,smart, there were things the man/did near you, and he was your father.” Olds suggest, that her father had potential to live a different life than he actually lived. Also, the poem presents uncertainty as to what actions the father did “near” his son. Further on in the poem, it becomes clear that she is talking about alcohol. She goes on to say, “the mold by which you were made. Down in the/cellar, the barrels of sweet apples,/picked at their peak from the tree, rotted and/rotted, and past the cellar door”. The grandfather molded him to become the same way that he was, an old guy who doesn’t seem to care for much and is an alcoholic. Olds use of enjambment when she says “Down in the/” causes the
Stanza three again shows doubtfulness about the mother’s love. We see how the mother locks her child in because she fears the modern world. She sees the world as dangers and especially fears men. Her fear of men is emphasized by the italics used. In the final line of the stanza, the mother puts her son on a plastic pot. This is somewhat symbolic of the consumeristic society i.e. manufactured and cheap.
...ut something the mother is doing for herself, while the second poem is all about the sacrifices the father made for his son. Comparing them shows the mother to be the more "selfish" of the two, in that her child and husband are distractions from her revelry, and they are somewhat burdensome to her. But the father is totally self-sacrificing -- getting up in the "blueblack cold," making a fire with "cracked hands that ached." He takes no thought for his own comfort, except, possibly, when he gets angry. This makes me think if the father had spent some time relaxing like the mother, maybe he wouldn't have gotten as angry. Maybe thinking of yourself every once in awhile is a good thing, I don't know, but it is interesting to note the contrast. I think mother in the first poem is person we can relate to, but the father in the second poem is a person we admire.
... 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 poem “Snapping Beans” by Lisa Parker is about a speaker and her grandmother. The girl is adjusting to college life, but she is having problems and cannot tell her grandmother; instead, she tells her, “School is fine”. She revels her inner thoughts in order for the reader to determine she is depressed and heart wrenched. It is hard for her to tell her religious grandmother about her friends writing about “sex, about alcoholism, about Buddha”. At the end Parker writes, “It’s funny how things blow loose like that.” This is a comparison to a college student and how they have to go away from their family and learn how to live on their own. Moreover, the poem “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden is about a father and a son relationship. His father wakes up every Sunday morning to light fireplaces to warm up their home and nobody thanks him for doing this. “Sundays” in the title evocate more feelings than the other days of the week do. Sundays may be pleasant family days at home or dull and depres...
The poem begins with the speaker, the daughter, describing how the sky “has been dark for many years,” giving the poem a dark and murky mood. She compares her own skin to her mothers, pale from the lack of sunlight, realizing that her body is beginning to change just as her mothers did as she grew old. The realization worries her, as she secretly longs for freedom from the chore of taking care of her aging mother. But
The grandchild “proudly” shows the grandmother the picture hoping to change the negative aura surrounding them. “With crayons the child draws a rigid house and a winding pathway.” (924) As already stated, “house” represents the grandmother. The winding pathway shows a new path opening up in her life. A look into who may be behind this emotional roller coaster is now featured. “Then the child puts in a man with buttons like tears…” (924) Tears to the child have an entirely different meaning than to the grandmother. The grandchild sees happiness in tears, showing that you can find something positive in anything that seems to be upsetting. The man symbolizes the loss the grandmother is feeling. The grandchild drew this picture to cheer up the grandmother. It is at the end of the pome do we find out what tears mean to the grandmother. The grandmother does not acknowledge the drawing and tries to hide her true feelings. While she is doing this, “secretly…the little moons fall down like tears from between the pages of the almanac into the flower bed the child carefully placed in the front of the house.” (924) The grandmother is coming to the realization that dwelling on the past brings will not make her loss return. Regardless of how much of an impact this loss had on her, pain is part of the grieving process. Only though pain
“Still Memory” by Mary Karr is a poem that depicts the distant, childhood memory that the author fondly recalls. Karr’s nostalgic diction and word choice is evident when she says, “…till it found my old notch in the house I grew up in…” In this section, Karr is dreaming, hoping to find a happier time in her life, her childhood. Throughout the poem, Karr is recalling a time when she was only ten years old, and shows how each of her family members’ mannerisms influenced her and her future in writing. What may only appear to be the family performing their daily routine, is much more beneath the surface. According to the lines, “My ten-year-old hand reaches for a pen to record it all as would become long habit,” these actions are what influenced her writing. For writers, inspiration can come from the simplest of elements, and for Karr, this happened to be her family.
But as the poem goes on, you come to realize that there is a hidden secondary situation taking place. The more obvious parts of the poem is the two parents having sexual intercourse, and the child feeling all alone in their big house. Once the child comes into the parent’s room, we actually get to see them transform into the loving parents that they are. The author illustrates the exact moment in when the child barges in on his parents love making session. “But let there be that heavy breathing / … and make for it on the run- as now, we lie together, / after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies” (Kinnell (917). For some readers, it may be easy to see and comprehend this surface situation. The child is the product of their being, and this poem is about the love the whole family shares. The author uses euphemisms to display an image of affection and compassion versus a nasty and indecent love. Kinnell’s main focus is on the love and devotion between the parents. He conveys his focus through such words like “after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies / familiar touch of the long-married” (Kinnell 917). The act of their gentle and quiet love is what wakes their
“I can’t take my eyes off of you.” is repeated many times in the song “The Blower’s daughter”, which means quite a bit. With the poem and to the painting, the song expresses the feeling in both of the eyes of a handicap person and in the eyes of another person who loves them. Handicapped people require all the attention in the world, and even when they aren’t being attended to, someone is thinking about them. In the painting, the artist depicts a young girl, who seems to be crawling toward a home on a hill quite the distance away. She seems to be quite thin and weak, which hints at the point there may be a physical problem with her. In the poem, the farmer and his family give birth to a handicapped child and while watching her sleep, can see the desire and peacefulness in her. “His thoughts while they are resting. She’s only imagining, stalks of yellow flowers flush and frilled and rippling, and a song of hours. On this and all the world’s resources, she lingers, lit up like a votive.” which means that she is only thinking about the most peaceful things in the world, and no matter what happens while she is awake, those thoughts inside of her will not be changed. These examples express the thought of someone being different or struggling to live. With the picture of a weak girl crawling to a home-looking building and the constant attention both shown in the song and the poem, these three things all connect in a certain way. They connect in the way of love and caring. They connect in a way that shows the desire and the determination anyone can see in a handicapped person’s eyes. In the song by Damien Rice, it seems, that quite possibly someone has fallen in love with someone. It does not have to be what everyone thinks. Love is not just something between two people, this could also be something felt by a father to a daughter, or a mother to a son, in a completely non sexual and non physical way. The father, who is a farmer in the poem “Bringing Desire to The Fields”, seems to be in love with his handicapped daughter. He thinks about her constantly, even when he is about to sleep.
In the opening verse of the song, the speaker discusses the need to see her childhood home at least once more before moving on with her life. She shares with the current homeowner some of her experiences while growing up in the house. For instance, she says, “I know they say you can’t go home again, but I just had to come back one last time.” This shows that the speaker realizes that returning “home” is going to be a different experience than it was when she lived there, but she cannot resist the temptation of a final visit to the “house”. The speaker says that “Up those stairs in that little back bedroom, is where I did my homework and learned to play guitar. And I bet you didn’t know, under that live oak, my favorite dog is buried in the yard.” This indicates some of the significant memories the speaker has of her time in the house, such as honing her...
I have read her chapbook The Branches, the Axe, the Missing” several times and her words stirred in me the need to tap into my own emotions when I write my poetry. The amount of time she ponders regarding her relationship with her father appeals to my artistic inclination to explore further in my own poetry some of the relationships that have come and gone in my own life. Specifically, her work speaks to a long dormant relationship I had with my own father, a conflict that became an empty hole upon his death years ago. Her poems such as pages “Eighteen and “Twenty-six” were my favorite poems in her book. I have read poem twenty-six several times and have read it aloud to myself in the mirror. Charlotte Pence pens a concrete image of life with her father, intertwining in specific diction an event that has impacted her adulthood. This prose technique allows me to understand that the remembrance of one specific event in a relationship can affirm the infinite effect a relationship between a father and daughter has on the future. The lesson I learned from her work is that a good poet must avoid corny language in the process of writing a poem. I took this lesson to heart when I revised my poem “Stolen Trust” and my attempt to remember how one specific life event impacts how I view the world. Many of her words have a resonating ring of familiarity with me yet I am clear that my relationship with my father was much different that she has with her father. Thus, when I revise my poem I want to stick with the truth. I use the language I know and stick with the facts of the event. Even though I identify with Charlotte Pence and her words, my poetry is in my own