A Blessing

Brandon Dukes
Professor Jung Lee
English 102
March 7, 2011
Essay # 2, Draft #1
Discovering The Message How can readers discover the overall message in a poem? Reading the poem over and over again would become repetitive and uninteresting. However, the way to find the message within a poem is to understand the poetic elements. In James Wright’s poem “A Blessing” there are many elements that give clues to poem message. “A Blessing is a lyric type of poem. James Wright focuses a pictorial image of the setting and the relationship between animals and humans. Also in the poem there is an indirect message. The message of the poem is, if a person can absent from their comfort zone they can see the uniqueness in themselves and live life unstressed. Furthermore, the message James Wright want people to discover is hidden within the poem, but he uses many poetic techniques that give hints to the overall message. The message of the poem is expressed thought poetic techniques such as, theme and figure of speech The theme of the poem was peace The theme was a major element in the text that gave hints to the overall message of the story. The poem’s description of the environment made a peaceful setting and made the tone for the poem. For example, the poem “A Blessing” states in ( lines 1-2) “ Just off the highway to Rochester Minnesota/Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.” The peaceful setting gave a hint that part of the message would be about being free from stress. Secondly, the ponies were an essential aspect of the theme. The ponies help created the picture of a peaceful setting because of the way they acted around the speaker and his friend. Case in point, in the text it states, “they can hardly contain their happiness/That we have come” in lines (9-10). The ponies’ friendly and peace matter help paint the picture of a stress less setting and gives a connection to the peace theme of the poem. In addition to theme, the poetic element of figure of speech was another way the message was discover in the poem. In “A Blessing” James Wright compares the ponies to humans by using a simile. For instance, in the poem it said “And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear/That is delicate as the skin over a girl’s wrist” lines (20-22). The simile demonstrate a physical comparison with the ponies and humans. Furthermore, another type of figure of speech James Wright present in the poem “A Blessing” is personification. For example, the poem implies in line (10) that the ponies loved each other. Love is a human emotion and in the poem it given to an animal. James Wright presented a connection between the humans and the ponies by giving the ponies a human emotion. The personification also presents a connection to message of the poem. Thought-out poem the ponies lived careless and unstressed, and the overall message of the poem is telling people to live careless and unstressed. In summation, James Wright’s poem “A Blessed” used a comparison between animals and humans to deliver a message about being peaceful unstressed in life. In the last two lines in the poem the speaker’s states, “That if I stepped out of my body I would break/Into blossom” line (23-24). This line explain that if people lived relaxed and undisturbed like the ponies than they will flourish in life.

Work Cited Entry
Wright, James. “A Blessing.” Literature: Craft& Vocie. Eds. Nicholas Delbanco and Alan Cheuse. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009.49. Print.

Cited: Entry Wright, James. “A Blessing.” Literature: Craft& Vocie. Eds. Nicholas Delbanco and Alan Cheuse. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009.49. Print.