Why Young Men Are So Ugly by Tony Hoagland is a fantastic poem because I think it gives a hidden reasoning for why a certain generation of people acts in the ways in which they do. Upon reading the name of the poem, I immediately noticed how out there it was, which gave me the idea that the author may be an outspoken person. The title was effective in making me interested in the poem, because it stuck out and wasn’t a topic I’d ever read a piece about. Why Young Men Are So Ugly is a poet’s explanation of what goes on inside a young man’s mind, and on the inside of his body, despite what that young man may be displaying through his actions and words.
The fact that Tony Hoagland was once a young man himself, and so this need for explanation is somewhat personal. Hoagland is giving reasoning for an experience he’s been through, which is probably why the poem clearly demonstrates a familiarity with the topic. Personification is an extravagant part of the poem, and used frequently. The first major and significant example of personification is in the second stanza “Making the metal ring like sledgehammers on iron/like dungeon prisoners rattling their chains.” (Hoagland). These two lines created an apparent image in my mind of what the author described was going on inside a young man’s body. I thought these lines could have been a comparison to the emotions one may be going through, a way for the author to explain how he could have felt, and had gave me the feeling he was crying out for someone to understand a certain frustration.
I thought the third stanza in Why Young Men Are So Ugly had a lot of hidden meanings and significance. “That is why they shriek their tires at the stopsign/ why they turn the bass up on the ster...
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... is the most important line in the poem. I think the author used personification here to make the image clearer to the reader, and help them make the connection from the line to life. The line gives the idea that the author has had to overcome his own struggles in life, and is describing how it felt in this poem.
Why Young Men Are So Ugly by Tony Hoagland is a brilliant poem because it portrays one of society’s stereotypes in a different and personal way. I think by describing the physical and emotional sides of how it may have felt to go through things young men may go through in this poem, the author successfully caught the my attention with the sense of emotion behind the lines he wrote. I really liked this poem because I liked making the connections between life and the stanzas in it, and then relating it back to what I know about judgment, and struggle.
When our lives begin, we are innocent and life is beautiful, but as we grow older and time slowly and quickly passes we discover that not everything about life is quite so pleasing. Along with the joys and happiness we experience there is also pain, sadness and loneliness. Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" both tell us about older men who are experiencing these dreadful emotions.
The poem starts with the line, “This girlchild was born as usual,” which suggests that as soon as a girl is born, society already expects her to learn the role she will soon play in when she hits puberty (1). Thus, showing why we are given dolls as little girls to illustrate how we should act and appear according to society. After we learn all the roles we will soon take part in, “the magic of puberty,” hits and girls immediately begin applying the ideals to their own lives (5). As if this attempt to conform is not enough we have other people telling us we are not to perfect. “You have a great big nose and fat legs,” says a classmate to the girl (6). This type of pressure can slowly but surely destroy even the little confidence women do have in themselves.
Patricia Young’s poem Boys is a representation of implied heteronormacy in society. Young uses tropes and schemes such as allusion, metaphors and irony to convey the ways in which heterosexuality is pushed onto children from a young age. Poetry such as Boys is a common and effective medium to draw attention to the way society produces heteronormativity through gendered discourses that are typically used to understand sex. Boys does an excellent job at drawing its readers to the conclusion that it is an ironic poem trying to emphasize the over-excessive ways in which we express heterosexuality in daily life.
I think in the beginning, this poem is mocking the façade of happiness that many clean-cut individuals have. It is a mockery of the thoughts in the criminal mind. Many times, a criminal cannot bring himself to commit suicide, so they take someone else's life instead. By doing so, subconsciously, the criminal knows he will be caught and in turn, executed.
Despite the beauty described in the first few stanzas of the poem, it was the feeling of doubt and pondering that approached at the end of the poem that truly was the most thought provoking. Instead of just writing of beauty, Poets must realize that they may be leading people to false ideals, and in doing so that they may actually be causing individuals to believe in something that is nothing more than a dream. This realization makes the image of the questioning poet by far the most important in the piece.
From analyzing the text it’s obvious to the reader that the narrator is dissatisfied with where he’s at in life. The first stanza is an insight into the atmosphere of his high school, and the word choice and imagery play a role in depicting his disgruntled
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;
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.
The first stanza describes the depth of despair that the speaker is feeling, without further explanation on its causes. The short length of the lines add a sense of incompleteness and hesitance the speaker feels towards his/ her emotions. This is successful in sparking the interest of the readers, as it makes the readers wonder about the events that lead to these emotions. The second and third stanza describe the agony the speaker is in, and the long lines work to add a sense of longing and the outpouring emotion the speaker is struggling with. The last stanza, again structured with short lines, finally reveals the speaker 's innermost desire to "make love" to the person the speaker is in love
I thoroughly enjoyed reading David Berman’s poem “Self-Portrait at 28”. Reading this poem made me feel sad, pensive and nostalgic for the events in my life that I miss. I’m not twenty eight, but I feel like the events that the persona talked about in this poem were very universal. I also sympathize with the persona’s depression and feeling with loneliness. I can relate to feel like I am bothering someone while I am talking to them. I often get scared reaching out to people because I am always afraid I am bothering them. The voice is this poem were very strong. The uses of imagery, tone and symbolism help make this poem strong.
The opening lines of the poem are more shocking than the grimness of the detail because they illustrate the bleak mood of the hero. He is distrustful "My first thought was, he lied in every word" and bitter: "That hoary cripple, with malicious eye". His despair and paranoia become evident in the inconsistency of his thought: if the man was lying about where to find
This line was very unexpected and this line makes the poem what it is. The poem transition from a love poem to a darker more painful story. The tone of the poem also shifts to a more eerie tone. Another thing about the third stanza is that at this moment in the poem, I can connect the poem to the Greek mythological story of Persephone and Hades. The allusion sets up the rest of the poem and gives the poem a lot more meaning.
While Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" overtly deals with the distinction between social class and the opportunity for greatness, the poem also contains a subtle yet strong message against the dominant role of men over women in society. Gray's tone throughout the poem is permeated with regret and a sense of something lost, voicing his opinions clearly against social class prejudice. This emotional tone, when applied to the stereotypical roles of differing sexes discussed throughout the poem, portrays the injustice of inequality between males and females.
First, Hoagland characterizes American culture with the poem “Poor Britney Spears,” which uses a comical title that blends in nicely with the first couplet, “is not a sentence I expected / to utter in this lifetime”, while using word choice that is simple yet effective. Which leads to the subject of the poem, Britney Spears a celebrity whose rise and demise, most young adults/teenagers are familiar with therefore, allowing the reader to connect easily with the main idea of the poem. Which is that people find
Along with the imagery we get from the title, there is a lot of imagery within this poem. Let us start with the first three lines: