Preview

Poem Analysis: The Race By Sharon Old

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
612 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Poem Analysis: The Race By Sharon Old
In her poem, "The Race", author Sharon Old's conveys meaning to her audience and poem through the use of imagery, parallelism, and tension, which complement the structure of her poem and add emotion that appeals to her audience.
In order to convey meaning to her poem, Old's utilizes imagery to allow the reader to locate themselves in the poem. Her vivid and descriptive diction add credibility to her imagery. For instance, she writes, "The jet was full, and people's hair was shining, they were smiling, the interior of the plane was filled with a mist of gold endorphin light...". In this part of her poem, Old describes when the women, rushing to see her ill father, finally steps foot into the plane. She describes what the women saw aboard the plane. Her choice in diction here complements her use of imagery as she chose descriptive phrases such as "people's hair was shining", "smiling", and "gold endorphin light". With such imagery, the audience is able to feel the same relief the women felt as she finally boarded the plane and kept an optimistic mind now that she was headed to her destination. Such meaning and emotion would appeal more to an audience who had experienced a
…show more content…
Through her use of imagery, the reader is able to depict and create images of the women rushing through the airport and how she felt and what she saw when she finally arrived to the plane. Her parallelism added meaning to her poem when she repeated action words such as “ran” because this allowed the readers to convey the frantic state of mind the women was in to desperately catch the plane to see her father. Finally use of tension allowed her reader to react to the climax of the situation. Her audience felt the same relief the women felt when she boarded the plane and was finally on her

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Migrant Hostel Analysis

    • 365 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The poem is filled with imagery techniques such as the “arrivals of new comers in busloads”, “Comings and goings”, “barrier sealed them off from the highway”…

    • 365 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Poetry and Lentil

    • 511 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The woman faces a “hard” life as a peasant. I feel the rhythm and imagery work together sort of as I explained in the last paragraph. They connect together through the…

    • 511 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Poem Analysis

    • 296 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Both swallowed in their job, the janitor in “Jorge the Church Janitor Finally Quits” by Martin Espada and the secretary in “The Secretary Chant” by Marge Piercy feel unappreciated and lost as employees. Jorge is “outside…of [Americans] understanding” and The Secretary is lost in her work and compares herself to objects such as her “hips are a desk.” The employees from these poems have become hidden behind their duties and are slowly sinking into the unknown.…

    • 296 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    As evident by the title of this poem, imagery is a strong technique used in this poem as the author describes with great detail his journey through a sawmill town. This technique is used most in the following phrases: “...down a tilting road, into a distant valley.” And “The sawmill towns, bare hamlets built of boards with perhaps a store”. This has the effect of creating an image in the reader’s mind and making the poem even more real.…

    • 2400 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Eng 125 Final

    • 2722 Words
    • 11 Pages

    A short story and poem, no matter how structurally different, are two literary pieces where a rich story is embedded. Readers are drawn towards these scripts by means of rhythm (poem), characterization, or a fictional setting in their respective narratives. However, the mere script would not make it entertaining enough to hold the reader’s attention. It would depend on the imagination of the readers as they are reading the story as to what they take from it. Every reader has their own way of visualizing the descriptions and symbolism used by the author. It is through imagination that the readers are able to interpret what the author is trying to depict within the symbolism and other descriptive languages. The beauty of stories and poems is that they are generated and created through the readers own imagination which consequently allows each individual reader to build their own personal connection with the literary piece. The two literary pieces “The Road Not Taken” (poem) and the short story “A Worn Path” are different in terms of actual writing styles, however they both share the same theme which is every person’s journey is greatly governed by their decisions and no matter how many paths there may be, it is still the choices that the person makes that determine the ending of his or her journey. Each one conveys a theme of life journeys and the challenges and struggles that go along with those journeys. In “The Road Not Taken” it is the journey one must make while trying to choose the right path in life. One path seemingly offers a more familiar road and perhaps the easier of the two. The other path is clearly been less traveled upon, yet yearns to be. In “A Worn Path” the journey that one woman takes on in order to care for her sick grandchild is unfolded. It is…

    • 2722 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Common Magic

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Figurative imagery was also used throughout the poem. The author uses them to express what the person is feeling or thinking. When he says, “her brain turns to water,” he is stating that she is not thinking about the real world because she is too busy concentrating on love. “The waitress floats towards you,” this explains how the speaker is in a crowded restaurant therefore the place is busy and the odds of her coming to take his order is very low, which makes her extraordinary and it seems like she is a angel floating. “His voice is a small boy turning somersaults in the green country of his blood,” which states that the old mans’ singing is calming and transports you to a joyful place, which helps forget the fact that it is just an old man on the bus.…

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    This emphasises the joy and eagerness of the pilot himself by suggesting that his emotions may be so strong that they are overflowing into the world around him, in this case, his craft. “Laughter- silvered wings” is another example of personification in the poem. It also shows how the poet’s own emotions are being projected into the world around him, thus emphasising his emotions and personal experience. The poet also uses “delirious burning blue” in order to reinforce how overwhelmed with joy he is that it is spreading to the surrounding environment, in this case, the blue…

    • 1164 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Sharon Olds

    • 579 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Throughout the poem, repetition is also used to draw attention and add emphasis onto important references. Olds stated, “-like…

    • 579 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Chopin Freeman

    • 291 Words
    • 1 Page

    “The Story of an Hour” often uses imagery to achieve its tone. For example, “There was a feverish triumph in her eyes, and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of Victory.” This use of imagery appeals to the senses, causing it to be so effective in achieving the tone of happiness. “The Revolt of Mother” uses strong diction and similes. For example, the words “disaster, afflicted, and broken” are used to…

    • 291 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Poetry Analysis

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Lorna Dee Cervantes' poem, “Poema para los Californios Muertos” (“Poem for the Dead Californios”), is a commentary on what happened to the original inhabitants of California when California was still Mexico, and an address to the speaker's dead ancestors. Utilizing a unique dynamic, consistently alternating between Spanish and English, Cervantes accurately represents the fear, hatred, and humility experienced by the “Californios” through rhythm, arrangement, tone, and most importantly, through use of language.…

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Journal

    • 312 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the chapter 15 as we call Sister Flowers from How the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, allows us the readers to experience the day with Margareute Johnson through her writing style as if we were experiencing it through her eyes and deep inside her thoughts. Her use of imagery, metaphors, similes and narration helps us paint and imagine a vivid picture in our own minds. Just like when Angelou is describing Sister Flowers, “Her skin was a rich black that would have peeled like a plum if snagged . . .” Her use of a simile comparing a plum helps us imagine the details such as being smooth, soft, and shiny, just as she saw Sister Flower’s dark black skin. Her use of imagery helps us experience things she saw, the smells she smelt, as if we were right there experiencing it with her. “The sweet scent of vanilla had met us as she opened the door.” As we read this we can in our heads invent in our minds how Sister Flowers house smelled like vanilla, as she was about to step into her house. Angelou gets us thinking that Sister Flowers had probably just got done baking. “They were flat round wagers, slightly browned on the edges and butter-yellow in the center.” Angelou already gave us her sense of smell, now she is using imagery to describe her sense of sight of the cookies that Sister Flowers just baked especially for Margareute. Now she is getting our mouths watering for some of Sister Flower’s cookies.…

    • 312 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Poem Analysis

    • 407 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Life leads us to excessive wishes that often result in a man’s downfall. Sir Philip Sidney in “Thou Blind Man’s Mark” portrays his hypocrisy towards desire and shows how it influenced to their downfall and destruction. In his sonnet, Sidney uses metaphor, alliteration and repetition to convey his feelings for desire.…

    • 407 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Poem Analysis

    • 1051 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The text that I will be analyzing is a poem by Lorna Crozier called The Child Who Walks Backwards. Throughout my analysis I will look into parental abuse, underlying meanings in the lines in the poetry, as well as connections I can make personally to the book. I think it is also important that I bring forth essential messages in the words and statements of the poem. The main theme I will choose to focus on is that abuse does not only happen at school or back alleys, but that it happens in homes as well.…

    • 1051 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    We Wear the Mask

    • 904 Words
    • 4 Pages

    4. What heavily connotative words are used? What words have unusual or special meanings? Are any words or phrases repeated? If so, why? Which words do you need to look up? This poem is very straightforward. There is no hidden meaning between the lines, just a wonderful poet pouring out her emotions on paper.…

    • 904 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The poem that I will analyze is from Sharon Olds, The Girl. This poem is quite graphic but it describes a life lesson that two girls had to endure. This poem describes a graphic preplanned rape event. The girls were 12 years old, it seems that they were at the wrong place and living a wild life, and getting involved with the erroneous people. They partied with their supposed best friend, this is what I am getting from the poem, they were being chased and after being caught they were raped. During trial they were asked to state what had happened to them. They exclaimed who their rapist were. After they went through that, the author goes along in explaining how one of the girls’ lives had changed. The fact that she no longer went to parties that smoked and did wild things. The girl was considered a good girl, a girl that thanked God, and a girl that had cheerleading in her life.…

    • 480 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays