Dadelion By Julie Lechevsky Figurative Language

For the first time reader, the poem “Dandelion” by Julie Lechevsky seems to be idolizing the dandelion weed. But after taking a closer look, it is noticeable that the poem has a bit more depth. It is clear that the poem conveys a message of truthfulness towards oneself and not letting peers completely influence one's personality. Lechevsky uses a variety of metaphors and other elements of figurative language to pass this message. Throughout the poem Lechevsky seems to be using a tone that advertises the good in dandelions, almost like an underdog sports movie, how odds are stacked against the team, but they somehow manage to pull out the victory. Also, through simple, real life examples, the poem “parachutes to my home” in a sense; it becomes

The poem begins with more of a sad tone. We especially noticed this when she said “there are no monographs on the dandelion”, meaning that there is not a lot of information on the dandelion. We thought that this meant that nobody wants to research the dandelion because nobody likes it enough to be interested, giving the dandelion a bad reputation. When Lechevsky says “But that's how life parachutes to my home.”, we sensed a minor shift in tone. It seems that Lechevsky seems to accept, but not agree with, that dandelions are not generally accepted by the average person. It seems that way because she says that “dads with their silencers”, a silencer being a gunning this case. That shows again that people do not like dandelions. We noticed a major shift in the poem when the poem describes that “no one knows how strong a dandelion is inside”, because Lechevsky goes from giving examples of how people dislike the dandelion to Describing how perfect a dandelion really is. This shift represents the theme in the sense that no matter what people think, it's what's on the inside that matters, and that people can not mold what's on the inside. The poem seems to have a submissive tone for most of the time but the major shift from submission to confidence shows that the overall tone of the poem is one of overcoming odds,