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Analysis of an introduction to poetry by Collins
Symbolism used in the poem billy collins introduction to poetry
Billy collins litany poem analysis
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• The words “fair” and “young” let the reader know the author was both young and pretty. These words give a delicate and soft feeling to the tone of the poem. They are pleasant, positive words that give a pleasant overcast to the poem. • There are some words that do not add such pleasantry to the poem. The word “scorn” means to scold harshly or yell at. This word conveys the author’s frustration at people begging for her love. This in turn adds a negative feeling to the tone of the poem. • The word “weeping” was used to describe the state of the men the author turned down. This too, adds a negative tone to the poem. The word “weeping” was used to show the distress of men and it conveyed negative emotions. 3) • The author describes herself …show more content…
The image is depressing because people are in a state of emotional distress and, in turn, that adds a depressing mood to the poem. • The author describes her suitors’ requests for her love as “importune” which means to beg. This produces a visualization of men desperate and begging relentlessly for the lady’s love. The word “importune” heightens the sense of how attracted people were for the …show more content…
Leaving this out makes the reader question whether or not she rejected him. Not adding what the author does with Venus' son adds a sense of mystery and hopefulness for the author to find love. I believe by adding what happened would change the mood of the poem from its original purpose. If she did find love, it would take away from the absence of love in the poem that helped to create a sad mood. Also, throughout the poem the author is fair and young but she never described what happened after she was no longer beautiful. I believe this was to done to preserve the original mood and purpose of the poem. 6) The length of the sentences in the poem stays the same throughout the poem. This adds a sense of consistently throughout the poem. This consistently parallels the unchanging mood of the poem. The short sentences also adds a sense of calmness because they are easier to read. The short sentences quicken the pace of reading of the poem. 7) Haughty: I believe this tone word would would match the poem because the reader had a sense of arrogance about her. She was proud of her beauty and had consistently turned people down. The follow text shows her pride and consistent rejection: “But I the prouder grew and still this spake therefore”. The reader may have believed she was too beautiful for anyone to deserve her
In the poem, “35/10” by Sharon Olds, the speaker uses wistful and jealous tones to convey her feeling about her daughter’s coming of age. The speaker, a thirty-five year old woman, realizes that as the door to womanhood is opening for her ten year old daughter, it is starting to close for her. A wistful tone is used when the speaker calls herself, “the silver-haired servant” (4) behind her daughter, indicating that she wishes she was not the servant, but the served. Referring to herself as her daughter’s servant indicates a sense of self-awareness in the speaker. She senses her power is weakening and her daughter’s power is strengthening. It also shows wistfulness for her diminishing youth, and sadness for her advancing years. This wistful tone is again shown when she asks, “Why is it /they begin to arrive, the fold in my neck /clarifying as the fine bones of her/ hips sharpen?” (4-7). She is demanding an explanation for why she must turn older. She is jealous that as her daughter is on the threshold of puberty, becoming more beautiful, she is on the threshold of middle age, b...
to the powerful imagery she weaves throughout the first half of the poem. In addition, Olds
In the second stanza, Piercy describes the girl as healthy, intelligent, and strong (7-8). Yet these positive equalities alone, could not keep people from criticizing her, so the girl feels inferior. “She went to and fro apologizing,” which demonstrates her collapse of confidence with the people she is surrounded with, who kept putting her down (10). She gives in to the hurtful things people say about her: “Everyone [kept] seeing a fat nose on thick legs” (11). The girl thus lets people push her in the direction of society’s standard of beauty, instead of affirming her own unique beauty.
The poem begins with the author describing this perfect woman. As she goes on to say in line one, "At twenty she was brilliant and adored." The soft choice of words Kay choose create an instant connection between the reader and the woman. We are instantly engrossed in this woman, and sure enough adore her as well. The poem continues to describe her social status. From "Phi Beta Kappa" in line three and "men whose interest was their sole reward" in line four, we are instantly drawn with an image of this girl. We can conclude that this woman is young, successful, beautiful woman that is popular amongst everybody. She is the apple of everyone's desire. The author creates this girl to be that of one of the most intelligent, attractive girls the author (as well as the reader) has ever seen. As the reader, we can tell that she is from a very affluent background. This is implied in the lines "She learned the cultured jargon of those bred To antique crystal and authentic pearls." From the almost archaic setting to the famous people mentioned, the time period this takes place can be seen as around the early 1900's. In the line "And when she might have thought, conversed instead" is ...
The poem “The Old Maid”, by Sara Teasdale, takes place on a sidewalk on Broadway. The speaker in the poem is a woman walking with who you can infer to be her fiancée and she is describing a brief encounter she had with another woman in the car driving by her. The speaker describes the woman as “The woman I might grow to be,” She then notices how her hair color “…was as mine” and how “Her eyes were strangely like my eyes”. However, despite all these similarities the woman’s hair compared to the speaker’s was “…dull and drew no light”. Her eyes also did not shine like the speaker’s. The speaker assumed that the reason for the woman’s frail appearance was because she had never had the opportunity to know what it was like to be in love. In the last stanza, the speaker no longer looks upon the old maid but to her lover and knows that even though they may look similar she will never be like her.
The young man is continually talking about his feelings about being depressed, empty, and having horrible feelings. He writes poetry for one assignment, and we all know that poetry can capture true pain and sadness. The poetry that Andy writes evinces that emotional torture. His poem is called “Poem of Hope” and is on page 57 stating, “It’s dark where I am. And I cannot find the light. There are shadows all around me. And my heart is full of fright. (Lines 1-4) … I cannot see the future. And I cannot change the past. But the present is so heavy. I don’t think I’m going to last. (Lines 9-12)” It is fairly evident that he is talking about how his life is dark without any light, and he’s fearful of if he can handle all of his problems because of how much it is weighing on his shoulders. He will soon explode after so much pressure and negative build up. It is a metaphorical representation of how he truly feels. Next Andrew says how he feels in another, painful way on page 123. “It was dark, so I couldn’t see, and I was under the water, so I couldn’t breathe. I tried to scream, but water got into my mouth and my throat and my chest. I was crying out for help, but my cries only made things worse. That’s how I feel tonight, Mom. That’s exactly how I feel tonight. (Lines 21-26)” The water represents the suffering that he is experiencing;
The most noticeable aspect of the structure of the entire poem is the lack of capital letters and periods. There is only one part in the entire forty lines, which is at the very end, and this intentional punctuation brings readers to question the speaker’s literacy. In fact, the speaker is very young, and the use of punctuation and hyphens brings to attention the speaker’s innocence, and because of that innocence, the
In lines one through five of the poem, Lucinda explains the activities she participated in before she had met Davis, her future husband: “I went to the dances at Chandlerville/ And played snap-out at Winchester./ One time we changed partners/ Driving home in the moonlight of middle June,/ And then I found Davis.” (Masters, Edgar Lee. "Lucinda Matlock."). Lucinda’s past life consists of stay out late at the dances and the games in town. This reflects her fun and carefree attitude before marriage, which is one of the many human emotions shown throughout the poem. Her buoyant attitude is not negative nor positive, but instead highlights her youthfulness before marriage. The poem takes an abrupt turn when she meets her future husband David. This abruptness draws light to her sudden change from being single to being married ("Explanation: ‘Lucinda Matlock’”) Her encounter with David displays the human emotion love towards her future significant other. Lucinda Matlock and her husband Davis live a standard, traditional life, which she lives without any complaints: “The life story, particularly in the absence of any apparent conflict, presents Lucinda as a woman who accepted, with pleasure when possible, accepted all aspects of her life as it unfolded” ("Explanation: ‘Lucinda Matlock’”) She naturally lives her life to the fullest and embraces it. Lucinda Matlock’s love for nature is seen in lines eleven through fifteen: “I made the garden, and for holiday/ Rambled over the fields where sang the larks,/ And by Spoon River gathering many a shell,/ And many a flower and medicinal weed--/ Shouting to the wooded hills, singing to the green valleys” (Masters, Edgar Lee. "Lucinda Matlock."). As she begins to speak about her connection with nature, the poem relates nature to
Throughout the poem, Smith expresses insecurity over her appearance due to not fitting in with society’s standards of beauty, were being white was considered a necessary criteria in order to be considered beautiful. She describes uncertainty that comes with puberty in the first sentence of the poem: “First of all, it’s being 9 years old and/ feeling like you’re not
...ent roughly during the time period of World War II when poetry did indeed rhyme, and was metrical (Balee, Susan). Gioia tends to avoid ornate, complex words; instead, he aims to express ideas through common words- “bloated” (14), “shine” (20), “tens out of tens” (10). This allows readers to focus predominantly on the meaning of the poem, rather than on the vocabulary. The simplistic rhyme scheme of “Pity the Beautiful”- ABCB- furthermore contributes to the ease of reading and comprehension. The balance between complexity and accessibility reinforces Gioia’s forthright tone. It is transparent without becoming flat, startling without going to extremes. The judgmental, patronizing condemnation towards various types of people is expressed through allusions, irony, and diction choices- cumulating to create the theme: the insignificance of existence.
Throughout the poem, a melancholy and reflective mood has been established through Page’s use of anaphora in lines such as “He’d
the poet is trying to portray the fragility of a life, as it is created with the intent to be lost (death
To me the poem seems like a lament for the poverty of these people and
Words carrying ideas of dreariness, darkness, and melancholy will often bear a drastically different tone than those suggestive of joy, brightness, and energy. The tone of a poem is often used to influence its emotional impact beyond the literal meaning and sounds of the words. A skilled poet designs their diction not only to carry a certain meaning and to sound a certain way, but also to evoke a particular set of emotional responses from readers. Sloppy and careless diction in poetry may succeed in meaning and sound but is likely to fail in evoking the specific emotional response intended by the
They say that I am mad / But nay, my heart is far too glad" (11-12) as she sings and rocks her baby. As long as she has her child, this woman seems content and fulfilled. It is clear in the poem that it is motherhood that brings enchantment and good spirits to the woman, and that she is dependent on her child for happiness.