Summers Day vs Parched Earth

Kyle Nishimura
April 21, 2013
IB English
Period 1 In the poems Summer Day, by Sarah A.Kettler, and Parched Earth, by Sally Hinton, both poets are able to convey their purpose through their use of diction. While the purpose of Kettler’s poem seems to be to essentially describe a summers day and illuminate in it’s laziness, Hinton’s purpose is to evaluate the state of Earth’s ecosystem. Like how each person writes a certain way, both Kettler and Hinton use their own distinct diction in their poems to achieve and convey their purpose. In the poem Summer Day, by Sarah A. Kettler, she seems to be essentially describing a summer’s day. She uses many descriptive words, such as softly, dance, model, and more, to illuminate the feeling of freshness and a sort of beginning. One might describe her use of diction as joyful, relaxed, bright, and jubilant. Through these words, she seems to try and just get across how a summer day might feel and how swiftly it might pass by. Although the words may portray freshness, there is a feeling of laziness as well, which also complements the idea of summer. “While the grass reaches up towards the sky, The water hums a sweet lullaby”. The use of lullaby really illuminates laziness. Because a lullaby is one thing you might listen to or sing to a small child if you’re trying to put them to sleep. Since it is during the day in which “the water hums a sweet lullaby”, then it portrays the idea of a lazy summer’s day. In the poem, they also bring across the feeling of how quickly a summer day can pass. “The moon suddenly awakens to say hello, and all to soon, goodbye, And the day comes to life once again”. This quote shows how quickly the night may pass during the summer through just saying “hello, and all too soon, goodbye”. While Kettler’s diction in Summer Day appears sunny, bright, and jubilant, Sally Hilton’s Parched Earth projects a diction that might be dark, ominous, and almost brooding to some. Hilton seems to almost write a silent warning to any who might get the meaning across. The poem elaborates on how fresh things used to be before the cities, and the waste, and how mankind essentially murders the soil on which they live. She illuminates and projects how rotten things are through the use of words like selfishness, engulfed, scum, suffocating, parched, and mainly extinction, in comparison to Kettler’s use of phrases and words like softly, dance, and gently. “Today we drown in the selfishness of our ancestors. Every day more cities engulfed by the rising waters.” By the selfishness of our ancestors, I think Hinton was trying to bring across the history of our ancestors mad grab for land and power, showing our need to clear as much land as we can just to make a quick buck. So by selfishness, it may just mean how greed has been passed down from generation to generation. Hinton ends her poem with a simple question, “Why didn’t they listen?” So by using “they”, this poem might not even be meant for us, but for future generation to look upon this as a document illuminating why the world is in the state it might be in.