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On Not Shoplifting Louise Bogan's The Blue Estuaries By Julia Alvarez

709 Words3 Pages

“On Not Shoplifting Louise Bogan’s The Blue Estuaries” Julia Alvarez’s poem “On Not Shoplifting Louise Bogan’s The Blue Estuaries” talks about a girl who has just discovered a poetry book that has made her want to also write poetry. Alvarez uses many different poetic devices to show how the poetry book made the speaker want to become poet even though she is a girl. Alvarez uses imagery and diction to convey the speaker’s realization of wanting to become a poet and not being a thief. Alvarez uses imagery to convey the speaker’s realization of wanting to become a poet and not be a thief. After deciding to read this book of poems Alvarez says “Page after page, your poems/ were stirring my own poems words rose, breaking the surface;/ shattering …show more content…

The speaker finishes the book and stares at the closed book “as if it were something else, a mirror reflecting back/ someone I was becoming.” showing the speaker is accepting this new life of a …show more content…

Throughout stanzas 1 and 2 the speaker uses “you” and “your” to show she is reading the poetry book and the author’s work is appealing to her. In the third stanza after she has opened the book and read she uses words such as “breaking” and “shattering and old silence” followed by the use of “I” and no more “you”. This diction shows us how the poetry book has opened up the speaker to the idea of becoming a poet and writing their own poetry despite men usually being poets and not women. The change from “you” to “I” shows that the speaker is going to become a poet and write poetry as well stating “my own” when talking about her writing poems as she read. When the speaker is reading the book she uses words such as “question” and “thinking” to show confusion on what to do with this new idea of becoming a poet in her and whether or not she should steal the book. This is followed by the use of words such as “reflecting”, “becoming”, and “answered” which shows that the speaker has finally accepted this new life that has been brought to her by reading this book of poems and decided to not steal the poetry

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