Loren Eiseley’s descriptive narrative in “How Flowers Changed the World” captures the story of flowers with a flare that it is eloquently written. For Eiseley, it seems as though he thinks that people walk past and dismiss flowers and their importance in this world. Through his persuasive and informative writing, I find myself thinking the same. Flowers are amazing and arguably the sole reason that man is alive and thriving today. Flowering plants were crucial for the life of man to truly begin.
A scrutinization of “Identity” by Julio Noboa, reveals the powerful subject of freedom, and the dichotomy between the rugged individual vs. society. Based on the title, I’d anticipated that the content revolved around what defines a particular person’s identity. This free verse poem consisting of five stanzas is an extended metaphor, which speaks of two types of people in society: “flowers” and “weeds”. Rather than being a flower trapped in a pot, “Let them be as flowers/but harnessed to a pot of dirt”(Noboa 177), the speaker prefers to be a weed, living an unfettered existence of freedom and wildness. Incorporation of bold imagery successfully invokes the reader’s imagination, “Wind wavering above jagged rocks/to be swayed by breezes” (Noboa
The poem mentions a flower, one that is “unsweetened by rain, untarnished by simpering, uncuckolded by men” (Maracle 156), pointing out to the reader that the flower is tenacious regardless of the situation that it is placed in. Maracle intentionally chooses a flower to represent the Chinese, as oftentimes a flower is symbolizes “strength and courageousness” (Koehn 1952) in chinese culture, revealing the respect that Maracle has for the Chinese. A discriminatory act upon the Chinese was the racial segregation into Chinatown during the time of the gold rush and the building of the railroad. Overtime, the segregation caused many Chinese to be silenced, fearing for their lives. Maracle chooses to dedicate the poem to Sky Lee and Jim Wong-Chu to show gratitude for the developments they have made towards encouraging the Chinese community to speak out against
More specifically, the first two stanzas generate a mood of happiness, as the poet compares different aspects of Jane with a plant, a fish and a happy bird that sings a song, which influences positively
In the poem, he writes in protest of the way they are treated and about the culture. The first verse can be seen as explaining what the life is like. This can be especially seen in the first two lines where he says “We Shall Not always plant while other reaps/ The golden increment of bursting fruit” The beginning brings the reader right away into understand that this poem is meant to display the frustration towards the treatment of afrienca American people. The second verse explains the way that African Americans are no less equal then white people.
In JN Polanco’s poem, Identity I mostly identify as a weed because I am free, I have had to overcome, and I am independent. First, I identify as a weed because I “wave” freely. Polanco writes, “ Wind-wavering above high, jagged rocks/” (stanza 2). The author’s words explain how weed are free, waving in the air. I am free and I sometimes stand alone with my decisions.
One day, a small tendril reached out from the flower’s dainty upper stem. My family knew that if cared for properly, this little stem would grow up to be another blossom. “Her early leaf’s a flower” the poem states, and this was the early leaf. But when winter reached our place, the flower’s head looked drowsy. We kept caring for it, and it made it through December.
Identity is a poem describing why the speaker would rather be an ugly weed instead of a pleasant flower. The speaker compares a flower to a weed by saying flowers aren’t independent and weeds are. Figuratively, the speaker says weeds are more distinct by saying the flowers grow in clusters. It makes you prefer to assume that the speaker is saying flowers are popular, somewhat ordinary, and loved which causes them to get trapped in a pot by humans to be peered upon. They are saying they rather be vilified than adored and trapped in a pot of
Within the poem the speaker, Edna St. Vincent Millay, dramatizes that love is only a feeling and does not last forever, particularly relating to the her experiences and conflicts in the past. The figurative language in the poem is comparing love to a seed, bud then flower. This shows life and growth; however, Millay continues to describe the flower to tilt in the autumn and fall in the winter. Millay is conveying the idea that all love will eventually end. Contrary to her belief, the argument of the poem is Millay’s hope, like everyone else’s, that the next relationship will have greater significance, and last forever.
Living in a society today makes it hard for many teens and kids our age. We all struggle and stress about this one thing, being unique or different. This is such a huge thing now because they’re are so many people out there who are willing to go to every extent to try be unique, or there are people out there who would go to every extent to just satisfy people. We all struggle with this one problem but yet no one really cares talks about it. In this essay I will be analyzing the poet Julio Noboa Polanco with his poem “identity”, how different he is to other poets, and lastly how he used his poetic elements with his poem.
The deceptively simple poem, The Tuft of flowers effectively uses nature to create an image that allows individuals to effectively shape their previous mental thoughts concerning life. The persona recognises the prior existence of another individual in the third stanza, “I looked for him behind an isle of trees; I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.” The evidential failure to locate another person inserts the grim idea of solitude, isolation and loneliness within the persona’s thought process. This is mutually reinforced by the persona’s interpretation of the situation “But he had gone his way, the grass all mown”, that every person must leave once they have completed the task that they are assigned to complete, creating an environment full of dismay and solitude for the next individual that is in the endless cycle. However, the tide begins to turn as “A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared”, indicating that the persona comes to a realisation that the mower had allowed the beautiful piece of nature to stand out within the levelled scene.
In Julio Polanco’s poem Identity, the theme of individuality is prominently discussed in various situations using extended metaphor. The narrator “let[s] [everyone else] be flowers… [he’d] rather be a tall, ugly weed” (Polanco, 1-4). The narrator identifies society to flowers and himself to a weed. Flowers follow the same routine of watering and feeding time and time again and are admired for the beauty resulting from these tedious procedures.
Our identity is defined as a distinguishing character or personality that make us who we are as individuals. Identity is a very powerful aspect when it comes to our own being. With human injustice, there is a social stigma where we use identities—these dignified aspects—to disapprove a person or group simply due to the fact that they differ from our cultural norm. It is the same feat with the flowers in Les Fleurs Maudites which translates to “The Cursed Flowers”. Themed after “the seven deadly sins”, the garden (Sancovschi) contains historically notorious plants that society has forced negative connotations onto.
There are some different types of identity in the society. People can maintain the identity as a member of a community such as a country or religion, and the identity as an individual, or personality. Thus, the theme of identity can be argued in some ways. For example, “First Muse,” the poem written by Julia Alvarez is about the Mexican-American girl who faces the problem to have her identity as an American. The Catcher in the Rye, the novel written by J. D. Salinger, is also based on the process of establishing the sixteen-year-old boy’s identity by spending time in New York.
Innocence is a trait that disappears with experience; we are unable to earn it back once we have lost it. We often correspond innocence with the idea of adolescence and unknowing and experience with wisdom and maturity. This is true in all cases, we grow each and every day and have many experiences where we learn new and different things, but we can never unlearn what was already taught we can only forget. “The Blue Bouquet” by Octavio Paz portrays this idea of the personal journey from innocence to experience or adolescence to maturity through showing the contrast between foreigners and commoners in Mexico. Through this contrast we discover how both characters had went through a journey from innocence to experience, this was shown through
