Stanford and University of California alumni Sandra Lim reads from The Wilderness on April 7, 2015, at Prairie Lights. As an alumna from the International Writing Program Lim was making her return back to Iowa City after 11 years. In The Wilderness Lim reads a collection of poems about love, spring and one poem that caught my attention was about the individual struggle of one's body within one’s mind. The poems are open to many interpretations but that is the way that I chose to interpret that poetry in particular. The interesting thing about Lim’s poem is how describes the body parts in some of her poems. It is very vague. It almost makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable but at the same time, I really like her style. The way she describes…
One of my favorite poem is “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy. “Barbie Doll” is a irony poem. A Barbie is beautiful when she is a little girl. But when the Barbie grow up, her appearance is changing. People start to judge the adult Barbie does not meet a beautiful standards. The adult Barbie apologize to people people, then she cut off her ugly nose and plum legs. The Barbie change a nice nose and a spindly legs. The adult Barbie become a perfect Doll.…
The power of an image is immense. A poem can single out an ordinary object of daily life and give it a history, meaning, and emotional worth, all through the use of an image. In Child’s Grave, Hale County, Alabama, Jim Simmerman uses the simple image of a child’s final resting place in rural Alabama to create a history that illustrates the meaning of loss in a way words alone cannot seem to do. In this essay I hope to summarize and explain in some detail Simmerman’s poem, as well as point out some literary techniques used in creating mood and emotion, focusing on the use of image to provoke a deeper significance and understanding in which the basic meanings of words are incapable to capture.…
“The Centaur” by May Swenson portrays an imaginative, care free young girl as she becomes one with what she thinks is the centaur, she is “the horse and the rider” (38) , but eventually her mother brings to an end her wild ride. Through structure, diction, figurative language, and imagery, Swenson describes a special time for the ten year old girl.…
In Anne Bradstreet’s poem, “ In Reference to Her Children”, Bradstreet reveals the mixed emotions she experiences after her children move out of the house. Throughout the poem, Bradstreet metaphorically speaks of her family. She refers to her home as the nest, and her eight children as birds. At the beginning of the poem, Bradstreet pridefully boasts about nurturing her children. However, pride eventually turns into grief once her eldest son moves away. Bradstreet continues to grieve over the five eldest children as each one starts his or her own life away from home. She fears that her children will not survive in the real world. Nevertheless, Bradstreet places her trust in God and begs her children to remember her as a loving mother.…
Having read “The Death of a Moth” and “The Spider And The Wasp” the reader cannot help but look at parallels and contrasts between the tone that Virginia Woolf takes in her piece and the tone that is seen in Alexander Petrunkevitch’s writing. While some may say that there are no similarities seen in the two pieces and there is no comparison to be made between the two pieces, they clearly have not analyzed these two authors works as well as they should have. Both of these writers overall use of brevity that is seen both in their language and the physical structure of the essay serves to both convey her ideas as well as provide the readers with a better understanding of what they are trying to get at.…
What meaning have you derived from Harwood’s poetry? Refer to 3 poems and include theoretical readings.…
For some time, there has been debate over what is the ‘true spirit’ of this module, with particular emphasis on how a student should ultimately respond – personally or through ‘readings’. This study guide will dispel your uncertainty and support your classroom studies by guiding you towards a personal response which should be at the heart of anything you compose.…
What themes and ideas does Gwen Harwood explore in her poetry and how does she communicate her ideas to the reader…
Author Mary Roach uses a surprising amount of humor as she delves into this repulsive topic. Write down one sentence from the article that you found particularly humorous and explain why you like that line. Why, do you suppose, Roach chose to add a humorous tone to this story? In other words, what does the use of humor add to this piece of writing.…
An inherent tension between nature and the material world is revealed in the imagery of Judith Beveridge’s poetry. Discuss the significance by referring to three poems.…
Usually to a reader a swimming pool has a good connotation, but for this poem Lux uses it negatively and gives is a new connotation to help him get the mood of the poem across. He gives a swimming pool a negative connotation by using words and phrases like, sneers, terror, fatal, kill, cruel, rage, and fear. These words help describe how some of the characters Lux uses are feeling at the swimming pool which gives the pool its negative connotation. Lux also gives the word "Winter" a positive connotation to the overweight boy when he says, "he takes the sneers, prefers the winter so he can wear his heavy pants and sweater" (Lux). Winter has a positive connotation now because the boy prefers it to the summer months because he can stay inside in his warm clothes and not be ridiculed for his weight. He also uses the denotations of words like fat and loneliness to help describe characters. Overall, Lux's diction helps him describe and give new meanings to the words and phrases he uses in his…
In Taylor’s “Upon A Spider Catching A Fly”, he uses personification to illustrate the dance of death between Satan, the spider, and human beings, the wasp and the fly. Within the beginning of the poem, Taylor gives us the account of who the wasp is and what happened to him when he fell into the web of temptation. The spider explains, “I saw a pettish wasp fall foul therein, whom yet thy whorl pins did not clasp lest he should fling his sting.” Here Taylor is…
The title of the novel can be interpreted both on a literal and metaphorical level, which clearly establishes water as a motif and metaphor throughout the novel. ‘Drowning’ refers to the act of controlling the flow of water, and is done by a ‘Drowner’ who is a rural water engineer who is responsible for keeping the fields fertile. In the first section of the novel, ‘The Art of Floating Land’, readers are introduced to the character of ‘Alphabetical’ Dance and his occupation as a drowner, sustaining life through the act of drowning, and hence water is established as a life-giving force. On a more metaphorical level, the word “drowning” has connotations of death. Thus, the title juxtaposes the idea of water as a life-giving force, and introduces it as a life-taking force, constructing the duality of water which is a central theme throughout the novel.…
In the poem, “ The Author to Her Book,” Anne Bradstreet refers to her book like it is her child. Just like a mother critiques her child as she walks out the door, Bradstreet critiques her book before the second edition is published. The poem is her outlet for her emotions regarding the exposure of the first edition, which was published without her knowledge. Bradstreet uses a conceit supported by metaphors throughout the poem, to express maternal feelings such as pride, frustration and protectiveness toward her book.…