Accidental Love Letter to My Favorite Poet
The first poem I ever heard that made me feel something, like really feel something—goosebumps running down my arms, hair raising on the back of my neck, and even at times gut-wrenching horror—was a spoken word piece called “For Eli”. A small, timid, and anxious looking person had projected so much emotion out of their voice and forced it onto the unprepared crowd. The passion was palpable; it seemed to fill the room until there was no air left to breathe, so I salvaged what was left and held my breath.
But that is very indicative of Andrea Gibson’s body of work. Listening to one of Gibson’s poems is like trying to start a car in the dead of winter. The fluids inside the engine are frozen, until a turn of a key jumpstarts it into action. It takes a few strained moments to get all the parts warm and roaring, but after, the ride is smooth and comfortable. Like any other art, poetry is supposed to invoke an emotional response from the intended audience. Andrea Gibson’s collection, Pansy, is wrought with emotion. Gibson’s ability to
…show more content…
The collection, Pansy, is reminiscent of one of their in-person performances. The opening poems “Elbows” and “A Letter to My Dog Exploring the Human Condition” set-up the reader for a soft, humorous ride with the lines “Despite how it might look/I was raised right” (28-29) and “I’m sorry I cry every time I take you to the vet/I’m sorry they take your temperature like that/I’m sorry I take you there when you’ve only got a bug bite (29-31), poking fun at the love and responsibility of caring for a pet only to pull the rug out from under the reader with “The Nutritionist”. This type of poem is where Andrea Gibson really shines. The first few stanzas light-heartedly describe the poet’s struggle to find help with mental illness, and then after you are comfortable, Gibson suddenly drops a bomb and sucks the fun out of the
Poetry is often created by an author’s need to escape the logical, as well as expressing feelings and other expressions in a tight, condensed manner. Hundreds of poets have impacted society throughout history through phenomenal poetry that, even with dark tones can be emotionally moving.
Poetry is something that is to be read delicately and cautiously if one wanted to find meaning through the words. Readers have to be gentle and patiently ponder about what they are reading in order to find any significance in the poem. If someone is not patient with reading, they will not feel impacted by poetry and will not want to read it. In Billy Collins’, “Introduction to Poetry,” he uses figurative language to help readers see that the way to enjoy and understand poetry is by reading between the lines and being patient with how each individual relates to the readings.
to the powerful imagery she weaves throughout the first half of the poem. In addition, Olds
...althier freedom than he had with heroin. He is able to channel his struggles caused by heroin into something beautiful with his music. Through this realization, the narrator also knows that he is in denial of his own tragedies when the tears fall out as he remembers people such as his mother, his dead uncle and his daughter.
In today’s modern view, poetry has become more than just paragraphs that rhyme at the end of each sentence. If the reader has an open mind and the ability to read in between the lines, they discover more than they have bargained for. Some poems might have stories of suffering or abuse, while others contain happy times and great joy. Regardless of what the poems contains, all poems display an expression. That very moment when the writer begins his mental journey with that pen and paper is where all feelings are let out. As poetry is continues to be written, the reader begins to see patterns within each poem. On the other hand, poems have nothing at all in common with one another. A good example of this is in two poems by a famous writer by the name of Langston Hughes. A well-known writer that still gets credit today for pomes like “ Theme for English B” and “Let American be American Again.”
Sonny states, “Her voice reminded me for a minute of what heroin feels like sometimes--when it's in your veins. It makes you feel sort of warm and cool at the same time. And distant. And---and sure [...] It makes you feel---in control. Sometimes you’ve got to have the feeling.”(Baldwin,16). Baldwin uses the comparison of music and heroin to emphasize the addictive quality of music for Sonny as well as the feeling of control it gives him. This imagery of the overwhelming feeling shooting heroin serves as an illustration of the power that music has over Sonny. Through this metaphor, the reader gains an understanding of why Sonny needs music.
In her poem entitled “The Poet with His Face in His Hands,” Mary Oliver utilizes the voice of her work’s speaker to dismiss and belittle those poets who focus on their own misery in their writings. Although the poem models itself a scolding, Oliver wrote the work as a poem with the purpose of delivering an argument against the usage of depressing, personal subject matters for poetry. Oliver’s intention is to dissuade her fellow poets from promoting misery and personal mistakes in their works, and she accomplishes this task through her speaker’s diction and tone, the imagery, setting, and mood created within the content of the poem itself, and the incorporation of such persuasive structures as enjambment and juxtaposition to bolster the poem’s
From the very first stanza, the reader encounters Brooks’ skill for using figurative language in her poem:
He uses powerful imagery and onomatopoeia to achieve the desired effects that make the poem more realistic. All this combined together produces effective thought provoking ideas and with each read, I gradually get an improved understanding and appreciation of the poem.
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
Sound Devices help convey the poet’s message by appealing to the reader’s ears and dr...
It is a way to crucially engage oneself in setting the stage for new interventions and connections. She also emphasized that she personally viewed poetry as the embodiment of one’s personal experiences, and she challenged what the white, European males have imbued in society, as she declared, “I speak here of poetry as the revelation or distillation of experience, not the sterile word play that, too often, the white fathers distorted the word poetry to mean — in order to cover their desperate wish for imagination without insight.”
When reading or listening to poetry, the main objective for me is to feel moved. Happiness, longing, sadness are some of the feelings that can be achieved just by listening to others’ words. It is within these words that creates another world, or separates us from our own. Words all have a certain kind of attachment to them, so if used properly an author can stimulate a reader beyond belief.
Restlessness is the main focus of Phillips’ article, it is the title of his article and in his opinion it is the reason why poems exist at all. “Poetry is the results of a generative restlessness of imagination… uncertainties become obsessions to be wrestled with, and with luck, the result is poetry…” (Phillips 132) Phillips, in summary of his article, claims uncertainties in life trouble our minds until the uncertainties become obsessions. We become restless in our quest to understand the uncertainties we face and by writing poems we can organize our thoughts and try to understand the things we do not. Phillips furthers his explains his claim by admitting “ I write poetry for the same reason that I read it, both as a way of being alive and as a way of trying to understand what it means—how it feels—to be alive.” (Phillips 133).
The tone and emotion of the poem changes as the speaker goes on. The first stanza of the poem convey...