Throughout this poem, Kunitz uses a theme of turning. He uses active words to show motion such as wheel and turn. These two words coincide together to show that life is a continuous cycle, “Yet I turn, I turn” (26). He uses the word “turn” twice along with “I” to show that he will not stop growing and changing nor will life. Life will keep turning and he has to go along with it and hope for the best. In the lines before these, Kunitz talks about his friends “manic dust”(23) and how he is devastated by the loss of them, but he uses this repetition to symbolize the shift from sorrow to happiness. In the lines after, he says “my will intact to go” which means that he will move on from the past and he will look forward to the future. He also uses …show more content…
In the poem, there are fifteen “I’s” and eleven “my’s”, there are hardly any lines that do not have an “I” or a “my” in it. Also, his first and last line have the word “I” in them, “I have walked through many lives” (1), and, “I am not done with my changes”(44). Kunitz uses so many personal pronouns to connect with the audience on a personal level, he talks about change and picking up the broken pieces and moving forward. He also talks about using his past experiences to help guide him through his future; he wants his audience to be inspired by his will to move forward in life when it is not in his favor to do that for themselves as well. He wants his audience to make the best of life and not let all the mess and troubles of life to hold them back from their full …show more content…
Throughout the poem Kunitz talks about “the layers” which are the steps and milestones of life, the ups and downs of life as well, “‘Live in the layers,/not on the litter’”(37-38)He explains and talks about “the layers” throughout his whole poem, but what about “the litter”? Well think about it, when a person hears the word, negative connotations come into mind such as “garbage” or “cat litter”. Kunitz uses the word litter to show that in life there will be bad experiences, but one can “pick up” the litter, just like garbage and cat litter can be cleaned and thrown away. The bad experiences can disrupt and hinder someone from moving into the future with their life, but once they move past the horrid memories of the past-just like throwing them away like litter-they can snap back to reality and write more of their
Throughout the whole poem we really don’t know anything about the second “I” other than the fact that it has, as sexton says, “been her kind.” These two “I’s” come together in one way, that they are disturb...
“Immigrants at central station, 1951”, this poem is about the Skrzynecki family waiting to depart on a train at central station to a migrant. The first stanza describes the time and the atmosphere of the where the family were the family is situated. The poem begins by capturing a brief moment in time from the whistle declaring its arrival to the scene of leaving with it. “It was sad to hear the train’s whistle this morning” these words provoke sadness where it usually brings joy. This tell us that the Skrzynecki family were sad due to the fact that they were about to travel to the unknown. “All night it had rained.” The imagery in the first stanza is depressing, the poems tone here is sad. As the poem goes on it says, “But we ate it all” the metaphor here is used for positiveness. No matter how depressed they were they still enjoyed it. The second stanza is about
Overall, dwell on this process of changing throughout the poem, it can be understood that the poet is demonstrating a particular attitude towards life. Everyone declines and dies eventually, but it would be better to embrace an optimistic, opened mind than a pessimistic, giving-up attitude; face the approach of death unflinchingly, calmly.
The major themes of the poem reflect the poet's own inner life and his struggle with the loss of his father. Through this complicated and intricate poem the inner feelings of the poet are made manifest through the speaker's tone towards the father. The exchange between father and son represents a magical moment in the speaker's childhood: dancing the waltz with his father. In the second stanza, the poet comments “My mother's countenance / could not unfrown itself (Roethke 7-8).” Here the poet seems to regret the fact that he hoarded his father's time after a long day at work, when his father could have been s...
At this point, he has recognized that he must give up his childish ways, yet he views aging as a curse more than a blessing. “This is the beginning of sadness/as I walk through the universe in my sneakers/it is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends” (25-27). “Time to turn the first big number” (28). this line explains that he knows that he will continue to grow older with or without consent. By recollecting his childhood, the boy realizes that life will only get harder. Much like the beginning stanza the last stanza, the narrator’s thoughts turn heavy and reflective. “It seems only yesterday I used to believe/there was nothing under my skin but light/if you cut me I would shine” (29-30). This signifies as a child, he would just brush off the hardships that would come his way, as if he was invincible. “But now if I fall upon the sidewalks of life/ I skin my knees. I bleed” (32-33). In line thirty-two, the poet, Billy Collin’s uses a sidewalk as a metaphor for life. Sidewalks are often uneven, broken, and rough, as well as injuring those who fall upon it. The boy states that he will fall on the sidewalks of life, no longer being invincible as he once
In "The Red Wheelbarrow," Williams takes familiar images but rearranges them in a way that differently emphasizes their meanings through rhythm. He does this by breaking apart certain phrases which conventionally flow together in one's mind: "depends" is broken away from "upon," "wheel" is separated from "barrow," "rain" divided from "water," and "white" is disjoined from "chickens." By altering the rhythm through divergent arrangement of words upon the page, Williams creates a new context through which to view and absorb familiar images (Koch 50). This re-birth of the ability to newly engage old images structurally serves the significant poetic function (that the literal line about men dying miserably every day for lack of what is found in poetry does) to remind us of poetry's value in connecting us with reality. His shifting poetic structure forces the reader to engage his images freshly.
The constant rhythm throughout the poem gives it a light beat, like a waltz; the reader feels like s/he is dancing. The rhyme pattern of...
As serene as the speaker may try to appear in the poem “Changes” by D. Ginette Clarke, Clarke’s “calm” way of delivering the speakers message unintentionally brings forward his eager and desperate side; and this is revealed by Clarke’s use of the repetition of words. To begin, D. Ginette Clarke writes the poem with a distinguished amount of words in which she repeats. She does this to show that the persona is eager to get some answers and clarification as to why his relationship with this person has ended. The first line of the first stanza says “Speak to me” (Clarke, 1), and the obvious question of who the speaker is speaking to is soon revealed: “While last year you were my friend? / More than my friend, my confidante, my soul-be” (6-7). Later, Clarke beings to reveal the curiosity of the persona by using question marks. The speaker begins to constantly ask questions like “Why? / Why is it now we can’t talk together / Why must you tell him that secret?” (3,...
In the end of the narrator’s consciousness, the tone of the poem shifted from a hopeless bleak
The poem begins with a first person view. It appears as if the “I” in the first line prepares the reader to step into Weld’s shoes (Grimke). In addition
In the end, the journey the speaker embarked on throughout the poem was one of learning, especially as the reader was taken through the evolution of the speakers thoughts, demonstrated by the tone, and experienced the images that were seen in the speaker’s nightmare of the personified fear. As the journey commenced, the reader learned how the speaker dealt with the terrors and fears that were accompanied by some experience in the speaker’s life, and optimistically the reader learned just how they themselves deal with the consequences and troubles that are a result of the various situations they face in their
Milan Kundera opens the novel with a discourse on Nietzsche's doctrine of the eternal recurrence. He rejects any view of the recurrence as being real or metaphysical. It is metaphorical he assures us. In a world of objective meaninglessness one must fall into nihilism unless one acts as if one's acts recur eternally, thus giving our acts "weight," the weight of those choices we make, as though recurring eternally, living forever. Kundera rejects Nietzsche's optimism and in compelling detail and poignancy he give us the story of the painful love affair of Tomas and Tereza, condemned by fate and choice to live together, yet never ceasing to cause each other enormous pain and suffering.
The mood of the poem “I Am” is very depressed and a feeling of being dragged along. Phrases and words such as “none cares or knows” and “woes” makes the reader feel the lonely feeling the speaker has felt all along. The guy is overwhelmed with the feeling of sadness and loneliness because of all the hurt he has felt from his dearest companions. Similarly the word “forsake” alone means purposeful neglect which, is not something anyone would like to hear. The speaker describes his friends as forsaking him because they have forgotten about the friendship. Mood creates the theme because it brings hardship which, is the central idea of the theme but, it shows not to get too caught in
The use of repetition within the poem draws attention to important themes associated with overcoming negative pressure. The repetition of the word “it” reduces the specificity of the poem, making it simply about a general battle with mental strength. This effective decision allows anyone to connect with the poem by inserting their unique personal struggles. To emphasize the amount of negativity that is present in the world, Guest repeats the phrase “there are thousands”. This type of repetition reinforces
The main theme of the poem that Frost attempts to convey is how important the decisions that one makes can be, and how they affect one’s future. In lines 2-3, he expresses the emotions of doubt and confusion by saying, “And sorry I could not travel/ And be one traveler, long I stood”, which explains how the speaker contemplated their decision of which road to take. In the closing, line 20 of the poem further reestablishes the theme when it states, “that has made all the difference”, meaning that making the decision of which road to take for themselves is the important key for a successful future. Frost helps to express this theme by using symbolism to portray a road as one’s journey of life. Using symbolism, Frost suggests that the speaker of this poem is taking the harder of the two roads presented before them, because the road the speaker chooses, “leaves no step had trodden black” (12...