Identity By Julio Nolanco

What happens when the opinions of others affect someone’s character completely? “Identity,” a poem written by Julio Noboa Polanco, contrasts people that are like weeds and others that are like flowers. Flowers emphasize higher/popular people or celebrities that get all the attention and appreciation. Weeds represent the introverted, loners of the world; they aren’t loved by many, but have the confidence to do their own thing whenever they want to. The poem indicates that you shouldn’t let the views of others affect how you want to live your life, and don’t assume that all popular people are perfect. Polanco’s style seems distinctive; he used alliteration, similes, and repetition to convey the difference between weeds and flowers. The structure of “Identity" is definitely interesting. The poem is written in five stanzas, containing three to six lines in each counting to a total of twenty-two. It is a free verse poem meaning none of the lines have rhyming words at the end and there are no specific number of beats. Polanco tells the reader that flowers are, “...always watered, fed, guarded, admired, but harnessed to a pot of dirt,” (Polanco 2-3), saying that the people compared to flowers are loved and appreciated, but only for one thing therefore being forced to focus on that one part of themselves rather than all of

He is claiming that the people that are like weeds stand out more and are self-confident. Polanco uses, “I’d rather…” (Polanco 4, 13, 19, 22) on several occasions throughout the poem following with the negative traits he’d rather inhabit than to be a caged flower. He also repeats the lines, “I’d rather be a tall, ugly weed,” (Polanco 4, 22). He wants the reader to understand the gist of the point he’s trying to make about fairness and independence that the weeds and flowers