The poems “homage to my hips” and “Fat Girl” resonated with me the most. I connected to these poems more than the others. As a young girl I did not like my body. People would bully me for being a heavier set girl. I did not learn to love my body for the way it was until my sophomore year in high school. Lucille Clifton and Megan Fox poems encourage women to love their bodies but, there are also some differences in them. Both of the poems use repetition. Repetition of words adds rhythm structure. The writers also uses repetition is to emphasize what they are talking about. In the poem “homage to my hips” Lucille Clifton repeated the words “these hips are.” Clifton describes her hips as big, free, mighty, and magic. She wants the readers to know she loves her hips, and she is proud of the body she is in. Megan Falley repeated “fat girl” in her poem “Fat Girl.” Society rates the word “fat” as a negative word, but Falley goes outside of society thinks. Falley repeats “fat” to make it positive. She wants her audience to know …show more content…
The poems themes are appearances, femininity, and self love. The women in these poems are celebrating their different body images than society norms, and they express how much they love their body. The poem “homage to my hips” is written in lowercase letters. The lowercase letters Lucille show Clifton’s unique style and subtle and classy tone. Clifton is proud of her hips, but she is not bragging. Megan Falley on the other hand is outraged and fed up. When she is telling the poem to her audience, she is yelling. She says “fat girl, fuck you.” Those words are empowering. She is tired of they way society sees fat people and is saying “fuck you” to those judgemental people. Falley loves her body and is not ashamed of it. She says, “Fat girl dance anyway./Fat girl shirt off./Fat girl lights on./ Fat girl, lights, on!” She is doing things some fat girls are afraid to
The symbols that stand out to understand the central concern of the poem are the camera, the photograph of the narrator and the photograph of the narrator’s grandmother. The camera symbolizes the time that has passed between the generations of the grandmother and the narrator. It acts as a witness of the past and the present after taking the photos of the narrator in the bikini and the grandmother in the dress. Her grandmother is wearing a “cotton meal-sack dress” (l. 17), showing very little skin exposure, representing
The first stanza of this poem (or the first of five poems) can be assumed as a metaphor for America’s ongoing struggle for women’s rights. This can already be seen in the first line: “Can-can dancing won’t stop hurting its women.” The can-can
...es her. The imageries of pink Mustang signifies her social class, while “Road” indicates her location as nowhere within a community. The commodification of her body means it can be touched in ways derogatory to her dignity whether she likes it or not because it is a saleable commodity that doesn’t belong to her. Her silver painted nipples identifies silver coins. Silver coins represent monetary value put on her body. Silver painted nipples also mean the attractive way in which a product is packaged. The poem also depicts the defiance of women against how she has been treated. She identifies man as the one that kisses away himself piece by piece till the last coin is spent. However, she cannot change the reality of her location, and temporal placement.
In the first few lines Clifton says, “these hips are big hips / they need space to / move around in”(lines 1-3). These lines immediately invoke an idea of hips, implied women, needing opportunities and room in this world to make a difference. Women will not fit into societies molds predetermined for them simply because of there gender. Instead, women need the same opportunities for advancement and success that men are given. These lines begin to allude to the fluid movement of the poem that is similar to hips swinging. The movement of the poem is amplified by the poet’s significant choice to use free form instead of a more traditional form. Clifton’s decision to use free form is another way for her to show women breaking tradition with success and grace. The movement and free form in this poem also symbolizes the way in which women are approaching the male dominated world. Women are attempting to break down stereotypes while proving they are capable and intelligent, in order to reiterate that gender has no affect on one’s intelligence or
The third stanza starts off saying, “She was advised to play coy, / exhorted to come on hearty, / exercise, diet, smile and wheedle” (12-14). In the girls’ mind she is becoming completely fake to herself to make society happy; this in turn makes her dissatisfied. She soon grows tired of pretending and, “cut[s] off her nose and her legs (17).
Some examples of metaphor within the piece are when it says “your laughter’s so melodic it’s a song” and “your creativity’s a compass that leads you to what you love”. An example of evocative language in the piece is “you don’t need any miracle cream to keep your passions smooth, hair free or diet pills to slim your kindness down.” These metaphors and instances of evocative language help emphasise the message that it doesn’t matter what you look like, the most important thing you can love about yourself is ____. Metaphors, evocative language, and repetition are also used to describe the expectations laid upon women by society. One particular phrase that uses both metaphor and evocative language “because the only place we'll ever truly feel safe is curled up inside skin we've been taught to hate by a society that shuns our awful confidence and feeds us our flaws”. Other examples of evocative language include “a reminder that the mirror is meant to be a curse so I confine her in my mind, but when he or she shouts ‘let me out!’ we're allowed to listen.” and “Don't you shatter the illusion you could ever be anything beyond paper fine flesh and flashy teeth and fingernails.” One instance of repetition includes “echoic accusations of not good enough, never good enough”. Another phrase that uses both evocative language and repetition
In the beginning, the “girlchild” being discussed is described as “healthy, tested intelligent,/ possessed strong arms and back,/ abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.” (lines 7-9) Yet throughout the poem, all that is pointed out is her fat nose and thick legs. As the poem progresses, she is told how to improve her flaws, through diet, exercise and acting dumb. By the end the girl commits suicide after exhausting her efforts to conform to society. The final lines show the people attending her funeral discussing how pretty she looks, emphasizing the idea that she finally achieved her “happy ending”. The poem as a whole demonstrates a type of satire called Juvenalian satire, which is a formal version in which the speaker (or writer) attacks the vices and error of society with contempt and indignation. Through Ms. Piercy’s use of description and words choice that implies contempt and sarcasm, the reader is able to identify how society’s standards for women’s looks greatly overshadow other talents and abilities they may have. It is demonstrated that if one is not skinny, and petite with perfect hair and a “turned up...nose” (line 21) then other traits such as intelligence, kindness, and strength are not worth
In Lynda Hull’s poem “Night Waitress,” a women describes her feelings while she covers her usual night shift at a diner. There is a definite struggle within the speaker. The first struggle the speaker leads the reader to is that she is not very religious. The speaker addresses her mother saying “praying to her god of sorrow and visions who’s not here tonight…”(6-8). The reader gets a sense that the speaker is also rather lonely. The speaker address a man in the diner who catches her eye. She then explains to the readers that she wouldn’t mind letting him touch her. However, it seems as though the man st the jukebox who the speaker notices is looking for something more serious. The songs of “risky”(17-18) love he plays on the jukebox do not please her. The poet Lynda Hull gives the speaker a sense of hope for what she longs for. The speaker seems to be happy however it seems she also has a struggle with the way she looks. She speaks about countless body parts, her face being the most important. Within the first lines she says, “I’m telling myself my face has character, not beauty” (3-4). Readers will get a sense that the speaker seems to be reserved in public in hopes that someone will
Not only does this personification alter the pace of the poem, but the fact that the woman’s breasts – important sexual organs and symbols of female sexuality – are portrayed as sleeping conveys a lack of arousal and general desire, particularly on the behalf of the woman. This sense of a lack of desire between the gypsy and the woman is communicated later in the poem through the description of the characters’ undressing before they begin to have sex:
... she is indeed angered and fed up at the fact that there is a stereotype. The way in which she contradicts herself makes it hard for readers to understand the true meaning or point to her poem, the voice was angry and ready for change, yet the actions that the individual was participating in raised questions of whether or not he actually fit the stereotype.
...sed society with religious overtones throughout the poem, as though religion and God are placing pressure on her. The is a very deep poem that can be taken in may ways depending on the readers stature yet one thing is certain; this poem speaks on Woman’s Identity.
Most people in the world today strive to fit in and be the same as everyone else. The narrator in the poem writes the poem describing how disgusted she is with the world. Everyone is trying to be the same where she is at and she is ready to be herself. Candice notes, “sea of fakes” (1), which is an example of a symbol. Sea of fakes is really referring to her school. The authors school is full of fakes, people pretending to be something they are not, trying to fit in with the crowd. No one is being the true themselves. Candice creates an image for the reader, “I wince as I behold skin-tight jeans and skirts and shirts so tight when they breath it probably hurts/ it's odd how the supposedly "real" people are wearing what everyone else is wearing/ saying what everyone else is saying” (7-9). This section of lines in the poem gives the reader a description of a school full of identical people. Everyone is wearing the same thing and acting the same. She talks about skirts so tight people can hardly breathe. These people are putting themselves through torture just to fit in. The reader can see a picture in their mind of a group of girls all wearing skimpy clothing just so they can be liked. This line helps to convey the meaning by explaining that trying to fit in isn't the answer. These girls are all uncomfortable and unable to be themselves because they are concerned what others will
This, in fact, is an example of “dynamic decomposition” of which the speaker claims she understands nothing. The ironic contradiction of form and content underlines the contradiction between the women’s presentation of her outer self and that of her inner self. The poem concludes with the line “’Let us go home she is tired and wants to go to bed.’” which is a statement made by the man. Hence, it “appears to give the last word to the men” but, in reality, it mirrors the poem’s opening lines and emphasises the role the woman assumes on the outside as well as her inner awareness and criticism. This echoes Loy’s proclamation in her “Feminist Manifesto” in which she states that women should “[l]eave off looking to men to find out what [they] are not [but] seek within [themselves] to find out what [they] are”. Therefore, the poem presents a “new woman” confined in the traditional social order but resisting it as she is aware and critical of
In the second stanza, the poet says that women are the cause that make her write poems because of the stereotypes against them, which give her a strong desire to challenge. Therefore, she takes women’s stories and writes them in poetry. She describes herself as a “seamstress” and without the dresses of women, she would be a seamstress without work, but her friends give her their dresses (their stori...
...l pleasure that matters over the woman’s. “So mi fuck her out hard when she position from back, worse de gul skin clean, yes and de pum pum fat.” Yet again this supports that idea that a woman is supposed to attract a man with her looks but also goes further to state that the power available to women is determined by her sexual nature in order to gain the achievement of being the women he wants. “Gi mi straight up pussy cause she know say gangsta no saps, it’s a fucking affair gal siddung pon mi cocky like chair,” this brings out the motion of objectification of women. In the last lines, “Wan mek a run but mi cab inna de air, Fling her pon de ground and put she foot inna de air” the action of taking control mentined clearly above eliminates the notion of respect of men towards women in this dyadic relation, which highlights women subordinate and inferior position.