Taylor Mali is a famous poet who was born in New York City in 1965. He was a teacher for nine years. While he is talented in the voiceover art, his poetry takes the cake. Mali has written multiple pieces including “Totally, like whatever, you know? (“Bio”)” “Totally, like whatever, you know?” is a poem centered around the human tendencies to trivialize their speech patterns. The first stanza creates a casual yet cheeky tone. In lines three and four, Mali states “…to sound like you know what you’re talking about? / Or believe strongly in what you’re saying?” This demonstrates his emotions toward the topic by informing the reader he believes intensely that society has deformed the proper English language. Again, in lines six and seven, the …show more content…
By calling the “disarticulation” a “clever sort of…thing,” Mali attempts to convey a positive aspect of these social changes. However, in lines three and four, he states his opinion that “…we’ve become / the most aggressively inarticulate generation.” This is another repeated belief of Taylor Mali that speech patterns of the years have declined in intelligence. The fifth stanza is only two lines, but has an effect on the reader like no other stanza in the poem. Mali uses repetition to make his list seem longer. His choice of words also has an effect on the reader because they are not like the casual tone in the previous stanzas; these words are of a higher comprehension. Bringing up the rear, Taylor Mali uses a very blunt and relatable tone. Again, his choice of words is proper unlike the language most people seem to make a habit of in today’s world. He proclaims in lines three and four, “Because contrary to the wisdom of the bumper sticker / it is not enough these days to simply QUESTION AUTHORITY.” Bumper stickers which are usually seen as funny and motivational are now being used as a prop for comparing wisely written sentences with worldly conversation. He ends the poem by explaining that you should speak with authority, not just question
In this paper, I will attempt to make Gunn’s voice heard according to how I interpret the poem, and by doing so I hope to show how relevant this poem was to the decade it was written in, the 1980’s. I also will explore some other possibilities of how this may have related to or affected Gunn directly. In other words, what factors may have been responsible for his writing this poem.
In his article “Daily Life in Black Africa: Elements for a Critique,” author Paulin Houtondji offers his perceptions of several aspects of life in Africa. His statements are explicit, observant, harsh, and backed up with examples and anecdotes. Many African pop musicians provide similarly critical assessments of various aspects of African life, but they choose to do so in a much subtler way. Houtondji’s criticism of Africa for its serious failure is similar to that of artists like musician E.T. Mensah, who uses upbeat music to lessen the sting of his subversive lyrics. In fact, so deceivingly happy is the sound of the music that missing the entire message of the song is highly possible. His candor and blatancy in expressing his opinion, however, also parallels the work of artists like Fela Kuti, Unsung Heroes, and Prophets of Da City.
... “There were no bourns./There were no quiet rooms” (18-19). Unlike the rest of the poem, this stanza has two definite sentences, making for a more emphatic, choppy rhythm. This sudden shift, combined with the words in the stanza, show very clearly that the noise and the choices will never end and he will never find peace. It is frightening to think that this could be humanity’s fate.
You hate my people, your plane is to terminate my culture” Here he calls on his listeners to question their own feelings towards him, his culture and his people. In other words he again accuses or concludes the hate towards the stereotyped Afro-Americans,
The poem immediately establishes a controlling metaphor comparing the book to a child, illustrating the speaker's inherent attachment to her work while also describing her irritation towards it. Establishing the metaphor by using terms such as "offspring" and "birth", the speaker shows that she is attached to her work, as a mother is to an infant child. (1-2) However, she simultaneously establishes that while the child is imperfect, so is she, calling her mind "feeble." (1) It is this duality of both the mother and the child having flaws that drives the speaker's sentiment of attachment to her work: as a depiction of her thoughts, it is a piece of her, and a flaw in it reflects a flaw in her.
As a result, this consequence is shown through the break in the meter of the poem. The meter of every line in “Much Madness is Divinest Sense” uses iambic tetrameter, yet Dickinson destroys the meter of her poem on the fourth line by using a reversed dactyl. There is no reason to change the meter of the poem, but to express emphasis. In the first line of the poem Dickinson refers to non-conformists by labeling them as “Much madness” (1), but in reality being sane. However, The third line states exactly the opposite. Those who believe they are sane with “much sense,” meaning the society Dickinson lives in is in reality mad as seen when she says “starkest Madness.” Thus, to physically emphasize the destruction a “mad” society has on a non conformist she destroys the meter of the poem with the fourth line, “Tis the Majority” (4). The author is showing that the majority meaning the society who is described as having “much sense” in the previous line, is actually dangerous in the sense that “Tis the Majority” who destroys the the iambic tetrameter thus it is them who are labeled as “starkest madness” (3). Dickinson shows that the society she lives in, who believes they are sane, actually poses a danger to a non-conformist, which makes sense due to the nature of
In the third stanza, the language becomes much darker, words like: anger, explode, and against make this stanza seem even more warlike than the first stanza.
Senegalese music can be divided into two broad categories: traditional and modern. Today's pop stars base their music on traditional sounds and rhythms and have become some of the most famous in Africa. The father of modern Senegalese music is Ibra Kassé, who founded the Star Band de Dakar in the early 1960s. Foremost amongst today's stars is Youssou N'dour, who combines traditional mbalax music and Western pop, rock and soul and has an international following. Touré Kunda is another world-famous exponent of mbalax, while Baaba Maal, a Peul from northern Senegal, sings in his native tongue and displays a more traditionally 'African' sound.
“I look to poetry, with its built-in capacity for compressed and multivalent language, as a place where many senses can be made of the world. If this is true, and I’ve built a life around the notion that it is, poetry can get us closer to reality in all its fluidity and complexity.”
As we progress in time, and as humanity as a single culture develops, our priorities and our interests have more or less made most of us self-centered and materialistic. The poet calls out such behaviour in people and tries to appeal to them.
Figurative language, which includes tone, metaphor, irony, etc., plays a huge role in the translation of the text. It allows us to decipher a deeper meaning behind the literal meaning of words, whether or not they are in a phrase. The tone of the poem is authoritative, yet jokingly interrogative. Though he uses punctuation and diction to display an interrogative point of view, he states things in a way that shows us, very clearly, that he firmly believes in them as well. In the first few lines of his first stanza and second stanza, Mali uses pronouns you and you’re to show his point of view is that of an adult, who notices and has an opinion on communication patterns. It’s how he addresses society. He informs us of the, “tragically cool interrogative tone,” and how it makes us sound like we don’t know what we’re talking about. Then, around the middle of both stanzas, he switches to the point of view of a teenager, including himself in the crowd of insecure speakers by utilizing the pronouns I’m, I’ve, I, my, me, and our. In his third and fourth stanza, he includes himself in the group entirely, which shows us that every trend rub...
“To let the form of a poem succumb to its matter is and always will be the destruction of poetry” Yvor Winters is a modern poet, but he is very much a traditionalist. Poetry is a beautiful art that when properly mastered can exhume beautiful emotions from its readers. Proper forms, structure, grammar, rhyme scheme, all are elements of traditional poetry, and all, in my opinion, are elements of lovely poetry. I will argue that Yvor Winters poetic theory, The Fallacy of Expressive Form, written in 1939, arguing that poetry must be traditionally written can be tested using a Non Traditional song, Seven Nation Army by The White Stripe, and a Traditional poem, Incident by Countee Cullen; I will then explicate each poem to further explain my opinions on his theory.
The poem dramatizes the gradual process of falling apart. Dickinson speaks abstractly of the crumbling of the soul as a dimension of time, rather than being instantaneous. Man falls as a result of a continuous and small-scale decay of the spirit by way of evil inclinations. The complex structure of the poem reflects the underlying figurative meaning. The poem consists of three quatrains in iambic meter, alternating between tetrameter and trimeter. The poet’s use of hyphens guides the reader to read the passage slowly and thoughtfully. The slow pace mirrors the theme of slow decay. The most obvious factor of the poem’s structure is the seemingly random capitalization of mid-sentence nouns. The stress and personification of certain nouns emphasize the small elements of crumbling. The figurative meaning of the poem is built upon by showing that all things can be broken down, slowly but surely.
In efforts to undermine the effects of poetry, the characteristics of being a poet, and how poetry has allowed us to progress; Emerson constructed his magnificent essay titled “The Poet”. Poetry can be looked at as nothing but words and false imagery by some, it always will be scrutinized by many. Though “The Poet” describes exactly on how poets came to be the greatest minds, and how a deep understanding of their own minds can lead to intuitive intellect. Many poets have contributed to the progression of society, and Poets are significant people that the world counts on. In Emerson 's essay, he states: “For, the experience of each new age requires a new confession, and the whole world always seems to be waiting for its poet” (8). Nevertheless, we shall see how Emerson establishes his candor, and way of free thinking of the righteous poet.
In the last line of the second stanza, the subject enters dramatically, accompanied by an abrupt change in the rhythm of the poem: