Lisa Parker’s “Snapping Beans”, Regina Barreca’s “Nighttime Fires”, John Frederick Nims’ “Love Poem”, and John Donne’s “Song” all demonstrate excellent use of imagery in their writing. All of the authors did a very good job at illustrating how the use of imagery helps the reader understand what the author’s message is. However, some of the poems use different poetic devices and different tones. In Lisa Parker’s “Snapping Beans” and Regina Barreca’s “Nighttime Fires”, both poems display a good use of personification. However in John Donne’s “Song” and John Frederick Nims’ “Love Poem, they differ in the fact that the tone used in each poem contrasts from each other. The poem “Snapping Beans” by Lisa Parker is about a girl who visits her grandmother. In the poem, the girl and the grandmother talk about their usual things, like how she is going in school. The girl responds with how school is going good, but she knows that her grandmother would not approve of her social circle and what they do and talk about. The narrator does an excellent job of using imagery and personification to help the reader understand on an emotional level of how the student may be feeling while sitting on the porch with her grandmother. One example of personification in this poem would be: “About the nights I cried into the familiar / heartsick panels of the quilt she made me,” (26-27). This use of personification indicates that the panels of the quilt are heartsick because the girl cries each night into her quilt because she misses her grandmother dearly. In Regina Barreca’s poem “Nighttime Fires, the narrator explains her complex view of her father. Imagery plays a big role in this poem because it vividly illustrates the girl’s impression of her father’s... ... middle of paper ... ...ictures for the reader. The similar use of personification in “Snapping Beans” by Lisa Parker and the use of diction and imagery in “Nighttime Fires” by Regina Barreca support how the use of different poetic devices aid in imagery. The contrasting tones of “Song” by John Donne and “Love Poem” by John Frederick Nims show how even though the poems have opposite tones of each other, that doesn’t mean the amount of imagery changes. Works Cited Parker, Lisa. "Snapping Beans." Literature To Go. 6th ed. Bostn: Bedford/St.Martin's, 2014. 338-39. Print. Barreca, Regina. "Nighttime Fires." Literature To Go. 6th ed. Bostn: Bedford/St.Martin's, 2014. 353-54. Print. Frederick Nims, John. "Love Poem." Literature To Go. 6th ed. Bostn: Bedford/St.Martin's, 2014. 358-59. Print. Donne, John. "Song." Literature To Go. 6th ed. Bostn: Bedford/St.Martin's, 2014. 465-66. Print
When I read poetry, I often tend to look first at its meaning and second at how it is written, or its form. The mistake I make when I do this is in assuming that the two are separate, when, in fact, often the meaning of poetry is supported or even defined by its form. I will discuss two poems that embody this close connection between meaning and form in their central use of imagery and repetition. One is a tribute to Janis Joplin, written in 1983 by Alice Fulton, entitled “You Can’t Rhumboogie in a Ball and Chain.” The second is a section from Walt Whitman’s 1,336-line masterpiece, “Song of Myself,” first published in 1855. The imagery in each poem differs in purpose and effect, and the rhythms, though created through repetition in both poems, are quite different as well. As I reach the end of each poem, however, I am left with a powerful human presence lingering in the words. In Fulton’s poem, that presence is the live-hard-and-die-young Janis Joplin; in Whitman’s poem, the presence created is an aspect of the poet himself.
Imagery uses five senses such as visual, sound, olfactory, taste and tactile to create a sense of picture in the readers’ mind. In this poem, the speaker uses visual imagination when he wrote, “I took my time in old darkness,” making the reader visualize the past memory of the speaker in “old darkness.” The speaker tries to show the time period he chose to write the poem. The speaker is trying to illustrate one of the imagery tools, which can be used to write a poem and tries to suggest one time period which can be used to write a poem. Imagery becomes important for the reader to imagine the same picture the speaker is trying to convey. Imagery should be speculated too when writing a poem to express the big
Poetry is a very subjective art it is up to the authors to determine how they want to convey their message to the readers. Both Ezra Pound’s poem “In the Station Metro” and Emma LaRocque’s poem “The Red in Winter” use imagery, that is very subjective to interpretation, to convey their message in an economic manner. Pound’s artistic imagist poem shows that art isn’t just visual but it can also be portrayed through words alone; and that imagery is a powerful aspect of poetry. LaRaque’s however is focused on how images can portray political issues among differing cultures.
He uses personifications specifically in this poem to write about what is going on and to describe things. “It's a hard life where the sun looks”(19)...”And its black strip of highway, big eyed/with rabbits that won’t get across ”(2)...”A pot bangs and water runs in the kitchen” (13) None of these are really human body parts on things such as the sun, a pot, or a highway, but they help describe what something does or what something looks like. In the first instance, the sun cannot actually look at something, but it could mean that the sun is visible to the humans, and if humans are out for a long time in the sun, they can get hot and exhausted. For the second line, the big-eyed highway could mean that the highway has many cars with bright headlights that are dangerous for the rabbits, the immigrants, to get across. For the third and final line, pots are not able to bang things on their own, and it could have possibly been a human who made the pot bang, preparing the meal of beans and brown soup that they survive on. There is also a simile in this poem, “Papa's field that wavered like a mirage” (24). This simile could suggest that the wind is moving the grass or crops on his father’s field and looked like an optical illusion. According to Gale Virtual Reference Library, the literary device, “tone” is used to convey the significant change of the author’s feeling in the poem. In the beginning lines, the tone is happy. The poem talks about nostalgia of when he was little, “They leap barefoot to the store. Sweetness on their tongues, red stain of laughter (5-6). (GVRL) These lines illustrate the nostalgia and happy times of Gary Soto’s life when he was probably a child. However, after line 11, the tone becomes more of a negative one. Soto later talks about Farm Laborers and how the job was not a great one. After line 19, a brighter
A couple examples the narrator used are; “He was a big man, says the size of his shoes”, “God-fearing man, says the Bible with a broken back”, and “A women lived with him, says the bedroom wall papered with lilacs.” These items do not really talk but they do describe the family. Personification is an effective way for the narrator to introduce the people to the readers without the family being physically present in the poem. Therefore letting the readers infer traits about the family through the items left
Many if not all books and poems use imagery to paint a picture and create feelings much like how Alexandre Dumas does in The Count of Monte Cristo to show truths that have been hidden. “Monte Cristo paled at the horrible sight. He realized that he had gone beyond the limits of rightful vengeance and that he could no longer say, ‘god is for me and with me.’ He rushed over to a boy’s body with a feeling of inexpressible anguish, opened his eyes, felt his pulse, then picked him up, carried him into Valentine’s room and locked the door” (Dumas 485). Dumas, the author, used imagery is this short excerpt because of how he wanted the reader to see how the count felt after seeing the boy, Edouard, dead. The imagery used in this excerpt is to show how heart broken he is such as saying that he felt his own pulse to show that he is extremely inexpressible anguished. He realizes hidden truths because he wanted power over villefort but instead he hurt his wife and their son who was totally innocent. The count also had many facial details pointed out by the author to establish the image of remorse. Imagery is used in more songs and poems than not which explains why Viva La Vida is full of pictures painted by
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.”
In “A Rainy Morning”, the imagery appeals to the senses of sight, touch, and sound. Some of the imagery in this poem that appeals to the sense of sight would be: “a women in a wheel chair”, “black nylon poncho”, and “long white fingers”. Also, some imagery that appeals to touch and sound would be: “strike just as the chord fades”, “her wet face beautiful in its concentration”, and “the wind turns the pages of rain”. Without the use of imagery in “A Rainy Morning” we would not be able to compare the woman and the pianist. Imagery helps us to see how these two are able to be compared to each other even though they are two different type of people, they are still
Personification is an important theme throughout this poem. In lines 1-2 it says, “The mountain held the town as in a shadow I saw so much before I slept there once:.” Also in lines 3-4 it says, “I noticed that I missed stars in the west, where its black body cut into the sky.” This is an example of personification. In lines 5-6 it says, Near me it seemed: I felt it like a wall behind which i was sheltered from a wind.” Most of the examples showing personification in this poem, are displayed in the first couple of lines of the poem.
It is not the first time I experience this sensation with a poem: “Breathe dust…” reminds me the calligrams of Apollinaire, poems whose graphic layout on the page forms a drawing, generally in relation to the text object. In both cases, even if in a different way,
Imagery is a common literary element many authors use to get their message across to us in a vivid way. In Richard Blanco’s poem “Queer Theory”, the grandmother is listing the things that the young boy can and can not do, such as “never fly a kite or roller skate, but light/ all the firecrackers you want,/ kill all the lizards you can, cut up worms-/feed them to that cat of yours,” (Blanco 27-30). The grandmother is describing the types of things that she believes only gay people do. She considers flying a kite and roller skating to be a feminine action and warns him to stay away from them. However, she wants him to take part in all of the masculine activities he possibly can. The author uses imagery to describe in detail what exactly the grandmother classifies as
Imagery is words that appeal to our senses, it then allows us to create a vivid image or sense of idea. A good example of imagery in the poem ‘Then And Now’ can be found in line 8 ‘factory belches smoke’. These words create a clear picture of a factory violently emitting smoke and describes what a modern city would have . Hyperbole was also used in the poem. It can be found in the 3rd line. ‘But dreams are shattered by rushing car’. This line is exaggerating that her dreams are destroyed by the European colonisation. Another strong poetic device repeatedly used in the poem is personification. An example of personification is the phrase ‘...hissing train..’. This is a figure of speech in which the train was given human characteristics as hissing. Theses examples/words help us to create images in our heads, which then helps to interpret the poem they way Oodgeroo sees
With fewer than fifty published poems Elizabeth Bishop is not one of the most prominent poets of our time. She is however well known for her use of imagery and her ability to convey the narrator?s emotions to the reader. In her vividly visual poem 'The Fish', the reader is exposed to a story wherein the use of language not only draws the reader into the story but causes the images to transcend the written work. In the poem, Bishop makes use of numerous literary devices such as similes, adjectives, and descriptive language. All of these devices culminate in the reader experiencing a precise and detailed mental image of the poem's setting and happenings.
Another rhetorical strategy incorporated in the poem is imagery. There are many types of images that are in this poem. For example, the story that the young girl shares with the boy about drowning the cat is full of images for the reader to see:
The second poem I have studied is "Ode on Melancholy." The idea behind this poem is that with any intense feeling of joy and happiness, a sad and melancholy feeling must accompany it. Or to simplify this, what goes up must come down. This poem is an escape from the inevitable pain as to expect a light not to cast shadows. Keats uses personification in this poem. "Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud." And, "Veiled melancholy has her sovran shrine." These two examples use personification to exaggerate the feelings being expressed and to help explain Keat's thoughts. To help explain joys and melancholy's interactions Keats personifies joy to be a male and melancholy to be female. This helps the reader understand how joy and melancholy are contributing factors to each other.