Just as poetry is a permanent mark of feelings that last forever on paper, tattoos are permanent symbols that last forever on the skin. Tattoos and poetry can easily be combined such as in Kim Addonizio’s sonnet, “First Poem for You,” the speaker admires her partner’s nature themed tattoos in a darkened room. This may seem to be a simple poem, but by utilizing tattoos as symbols, including tactile and visual imagery in her poem, and using the sonnet as her structure, Addonizio laments about the true meaning of relationships and their longevity.…
In the poem “Sweethearts,” by Allen Branden he describes the feelings of a young couple who have to sneak out to find time to spend with each other. The line, “Through the pale statuary and falling leaves” (2) gives the poem a setting of being in a cemetery in the autumn. Their love is so strong that they never want to be apart. The speaker is a man who is telling a story about a relationship that he was in as a teenager; he is not speaking to anyone unparticular. Through diction, symbols and tone the author explains how young love can be confusing, misunderstood, and full of emotion.…
“Thanatopsis” is a romantic poem written by William Cullen Bryant. The poem gives a pantheistic and philosophical view of nature, God, and death. “Thanatopsis” was a revolutionary work for its time because it focuses of finding solace in death. Bryant’s writing challenged the normal concept of literature by building off of and borrowing old ideas. Before transcendentalist ideas became popular, writers’ work was centered on God and the physical world. Bryant and other transcendentalist writers challenged this ordinary way of thinking by questioning reality, finding comfort in nature, and concentrating on improving their inner beings. Bryant vividly describes the beauty and grace in nature with the use of personification. He wants the reader…
Marriage is an incredible bond between two people who have chosen to love each other for not only their perfections but also all for their imperfections. Love is a choose and marriage should also be a choose, but love is also a feeling and two people should feel that together they can become one. Marriage is meant to last forever, not just until one is tired of trying. The poems in the chapter describe different types and stages of love and marriage. “How Do I Love Thee,” “The Tally Stick,” and “To My Dear and Loving Husband” are the poems that reinforce how a marriage should be. On the other hand “A River-Merchant’s Wife: A Letter” and “To the Ladies” are poems that challenge the way a marriage should be.…
Flattered but embarrassed, she informs him in front of his friends that there are topics for poetry other than sex. When he asks her to name one, she writes the word “love” on his hand.…
It can be said that struggles bring people together and, at the same time, break them apart. When two people realize their life situations are quite similar are controlled by fundamentalism, they tend to stay close to one another for comfort and understanding, even though they share nothing in interest. However one will eventually attempt a change, to try and manipulate their circumstances for the better or to leave. The other is inevitably left alone and desolate. Although a complicated kindness entwines many such consequences from social issues and other obstacles deep inside its storylines, it reveals its dominant theme in the conclusion: that love endures in the end. Love will make hardships tolerable, will bind people together in spirit if not in a physical sense, and will brighten the optimism in the heart.…
“Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds” by Shakespeare Compared with “Why Should A Foolish Marriage Vow” by John Dryden…
The true nature of the poem was cordial and relaxing. The sentiment was also inspiring as the poem gave me the strong feeling of passion by his use of poetic devices and tone. The verse "Loving can heal, loving can mend your soul" paints a beautiful mental image which strengthens the power and passion the poet is trying to portray. In addition, the verse "We keep this love in a photograph" allows for the symbolization of a picture as a memory of love. This provides the poem with the basic foundation that drives the poet's ambition to reconstruct the love he feels toward his significant other. All in all, the poem talks about capturing the key moments he felt closely toward his partner and to use it to keep the inner flame of their relationship…
Compare and contrast Don Quixote with either King Arthur or Sundiata. How are the two figures you have chosen alike? How are they different? Be sure to use specific examples from the stories you have read to illustrate your points.…
“You have all these ingredients, the details of your life...you must add the heat and…
In this poem, the evening has set upon the urban neighborhood as the speaker embarks on a walk. He see a crowd of people and hears a lover singing to his beloved and his song portrays that his love will never cease. The clocks, however, showcase a contradictory attitude through the use of their diction by insinuating that love will end because the lovers’ lives will as well. Throughout the poem, the lovers remain naively optimistic while the clocks take a cynical point of view toward love and time. The author of this poem demonstrates device usage such as metaphors, personification, and symbolism in effort to reveal the idea that one should live each day as if were his/her last.…
In “A Decade,” a poem by Amy Lowell, the reader is shown how a lover’s attitude can go from infatuation at first to just predictability and love. In this poem Lowell uses imagery and similes to elaborate on the feelings of the speaker towards his/her lover. In the beginning of the relationship the speaker is infatuated with the lover, and Lowell expresses this infatuation through the use of a simile in line one when comparing the lover to “red wine and honey”. As the relationship goes on deeper into the decade a comparison between the lover and “morning bread” is made in line three, showing the reader that instead of being like “red wine and honey” in the beginning, which burnt the speaker’s mouth with sweetness, now the lover is perceived as being “smooth and pleasant”.…
The poem is arranged into five stanzas, each with its own setting and time of day to unify the whole literary piece into one length of time; a day. It starts from one midnight to the next, taking the reader through a journey that could possibly be compared to the length of one’s lifetime. The first stanza starts its time during the late night. This is evident because the speaker addresses the way light works in the dark. The first two lines could be understood as two lovers are trying to find each other in the dark but there is enough light from them to ‘bless’ them with a ‘meaningless O’ which could represent a kiss between the two lovers. A kiss itself is meaningless but because the lovers were able to find each other, the light allowed them to “[teach…
The poem “Valentine” written by the present poet laureate in UK, Carol Ann Duffy, subverts the idealized and universal idea of love and projects the dual nature of its essence. She rejects the gifts conventionally associated with Valentine’s Day, such as ‘red-rose’, ‘satin cloth’, ‘cute card’, ‘kissogram’ and brings a Copernican revolution with the option of “Onion” as a gift which acts as an extended metaphor throughout the poem. Insofar as the techniques are concerned, the poetess employs imagery, symbolism, word choice and structure so as to entrench in the mind of the reader that “Valentine” is an unusual love-poem.…
In the poem “Old Couple” by Charles Simic, the author utilizes a frightful tone, and the symbol of the fifth floor window to reveal the controlling idea that humans tend to impose their perceptions onto the world around them, which can alter the way one perceives reality. In order to have a better grasp on people and the world around them, one should remain open minded instead of jumping to conclusions. Within this poem, the speaker is unreliable. The speaker is viewing the couple from a distance and describes the couple from what they have seen. In the first stanza, the speaker states, “As far as I know, they never go out.” By stating “As far as I know,” the speaker reveals that they do not know much about the old couple. Consequently, the…