Harwood’s A Valediction raises the idea that as humans we change and develop over time and with age develop a new sense of maturity and contentment with life. In this poem Harwood moves from a literal experience and memory to pensive reflection in order to create a contrast between the younger and older persona. She begins by recounting her memories of the poet Donne whose poetry inspired and encouraged her as a child and helped her through the challenges…
Her poetry often explores parts of life through past and present as well as innocence and wisdom. They usually emphasize strong connections between imagination,…
When, all too often, times became too much for my younger self to handle at my steadily, unsteady home. I would then disappear to my own escape behind the baby blue shutters of my grandparent’s two-hundred something year-old home. Barry found comfort in the artwork she…
The excerpt from Mary Oliver’s “Building the House” serves as a way to describe what happens during the poetry writing process. Although Mary Oliver believes that writing poetry is hard work, she uses extended metaphor, juxtaposition, and point of view to describe the writing process in comparison of building a house, which shows that Oliver sees poetry as something that involves mental labor which is a different challenge than physical labor .…
Imagine being abused, hit, yelled at, and left alone without the most important feeling of love. Growing up without a shoulder to cry on or a hand to hold. How would these actions sculpt you as an individual? Would they compel you to do the same actions to your own loved ones, or show them love and compassion, which your life had lacked? Poets tend to write pieces of literature as reflections back on their personal lives, describing situations that stay afloat in their heads. Sharon Olds’ happened to be one of these poets, who expressed her upsetting past relationship with her father and current relationships with her children through these works of art. In Olds’ first poems, she…
The poem that I chose to write about for my assignment is “Lisa’s Ritual, Age 10"…
The poems “Daystar” by Rita Dove and “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden share many similar themes. The main theme that these two poems share is being unappreciated. Both narrators used specific language and imagery to support this theme.…
In this poem Chrystal Meeker does an exceptional job of showing what this family is going through. We understand that they are far from rich but that there is true love and loyalty from this mother toward her children. The reader also understands what the mother sacrifices, but more importantly her daughters come to appreciate what she has done for…
The work that I chose was an excerpt from Dr. Maya Angelou book, “Wouldn’t Take Nothing For My Journey Now” and other works from the author Maya Angelou simply because in almost all of her works whether poems, books and etcetera, she writes the same way.. In her except she talks about being a young mother of a Kindergartener. She talks also of how she worked hard to make a living for her and her child by working two jobs. The talk of how she survived and her doing what she has to is called survival of the fittest, in nature and in culture only the strong survive. Also she talks of how she is comfortable with herself and the skin she is in. Much of her work is of special interest to women, expressing Maya Angelou’s views on subjects ranging from fashion and entertainment to sensuality and pregnancy, racism, and death. “Getups,” demonstrating not only Angelou’s love of richly colorful clothing but also a painful event from her years as a single mother of a small boy; and “Extending Boundaries,” recounting an embarrassing experience from Angelou’s early days as a writer in New York City. Angelou uses each incident to draw some point, though generally she offers her moral or advice with a light hand, often with humor, despite the seriousness of some of her subject matter. Her recurrent themes include self-knowledge and the necessity of honesty, prudence, and respect in the treatment of oneself and others. A compilation of brief scenes, thoughts and situations. The collection is rather wide ranging from history to social graces to autobiography. The past and the present collide as the stories are short and end quickly, the transitions are abrupt. Maya Angelou's tendency to characterize the world as degenerating. Passages like, "we have come to a place, a time, when virtue is no longer considered a virtue. The mention of virtue is ridiculed, and even the word itself has fallen out of favor," put me off. It belies a tendency to…
The life of Jane Kenyon was one full of victories, hardships, and all around love for her creative and poignant poetry that she shared with the world. Throughout the terrible events that plagued her adulthood, Kenyon managed to persevere and do what she loved most, which was to keep writing and inspiring others. Many people who read her poetry are able to catch a glimpse into the underlying meaning that was intertwined into the verses. The purpose of Kenyon's writings was to show the world her best attempt at staying strong even through all the difficult events that occurred in her life. She was able to combine her personal life with her love for her work, just like most great poets do.…
Both Dove’s and Wilbur’s poems are written from the perspective of an older writer looking back at youth. Although in “5th Grade Autobiography” the author writes of her own youth from a first person perspective whereas the in “The Writer” the author writes about his daughter’s youth from an outside perspective, both wonderfully impart the blissful feeling of childhood through vivid descriptions of the soft and pleasant nuances that make childhood so blissful. Rita Dove shows us her world through the lens of a fifth grader. She envies her older brother despite the fact that he is depicted as young and inexperienced, shown by his poor choice to squat in poison ivy. Her grandparents have a very strong presence and are given just as lively a role as her young brother. Pictures of luminous felines come to mind when she describes her grandmother, a youthful and vibrant staple in her world. Grandfather smells of lemons, a bright, zesty, lively smell, and is imprinted in her life memories of Christmases. Richard Wilber manages to conjure a similarly blissful/childish world encompassed by the sounds of a typewriter, beautiful linden windows, and the majestic and dreamlike positioning of his daughters room. He pulls us further into this blissful illusion by using words and descriptions alluding to a ship, drifting into the deep open water away from the rest of the world.…
For a true appreciation of the sanctity of life and for true spiritual maturation, an individual must accept and come to terms with the frail mortality of human life. Harwood's poetry uses truly harrowing language to convey how her own personal experiences and relationships have led her to an enlightened state of being, with continual use of religious metaphor and allusion to convey her enriched spirituality. One of her poems that shows this is, At Mornington, is a reflection of her life, from her early childhood experiences at the beach, to her present middle-aged self, by the graves of her parents. Another that examines this is Father and Child, which is in two separate sections, the first depicting her initial confrontation with death as a child and the second conveying her acceptance of mortality when she is forced to part ways with her dying father.…
This poem reminds me of my childhood. Growing up and being a child from a family that was severely diverse and different. This poem is my mom motivational speech everyday till this day about patience, independent and growing up into me. It brings back memories of learning new thing from the world and adapting it in ways that will be beneficial in the future and teaches about self-confidence, patience, hard work and never giving up. Reading it again after a long while filled me with aspiration and motivation that makes me think this is the best poem ever.…
The tone of how youth can be bitter and unforgiving is shown through examples of negative things in childhood. The theme of the catalog poem is that while youth can be joyful, it can be very dangerous and depressing for many.…
Gwen Harwood’s poetry explores the reality of human existence, utilising a number of personal experiences in order to impart meaning onto the responders. The poems, At Mornington and A Valediction, explore countless thematic concerns including the loss of childhood innocence, comprehending mortality and maturation of individuals. Utilising a regular variation of tense, between past and present, and her own personal relationships with others, Harwood’s poetry provokes an appreciation of the past, and reinforce themes, which highlights their universal significance. Within the beginning of the poem At Mornington, Harwood explores a childhood memory, at “the sea’s edge”, in order to highlight her apparent childhood strength in her naïve belief that she could defy nature by “walking on water/it’s only a matter of balance”, only to be saved by her father. This nativity is reinforced in the parable of the pumpkin, which grew upwards in “airy defiance of nature”. The biblical allusion with the attempt to walk on water reinforces the blind faith and innocence of the child which is contrasted to the personas self-awareness and acceptance of her own mortality, “at the time of life, when our bones begin to wear”. This childhood recollection can be deemed as the commencement of her acceptance of death; however it is only upon self-reflection on this…