Trying To Name What Doesn’t Change By Naomi Shihab Nye Introduction Naomi Shihab Nye is an American novelist and poet born in 1952. She is mostly known for her poetic works that looks at ordinary events in life from a different and interesting perspective. Her approach has been the use of events, people and objects to pass her messages. In this paper, the main focus is on her poem ‘Trying to Name What Doesn’t Change’ which was written and published in 1995. The main analysis is in terms of the images the poet presents and how the objects in the poem enhance meaning. The poem talks about how different people see what can never change in life. The poet uses characters to bring out this. At the beginning, Roselva can only see the train tracks as what can never change. Peter on the other hand sees that the track changes and thus describes …show more content…
For example, a line in the poem says, I've watched one for three years, she says, and it doesn't cure, doesn't break, doesn't grow". This quote simply means that if the train tracks did change, then they would grow just like human beings. The image clearly brought out in the line is that of personification. Secondly, the poem brings out the image of symbolism. For example, a line states, ‘The train whistle still wails its ancient sound bit when it goes away, shrinking back from the walls of the brain, it takes something different with it every time’ this is a symbol which creates the theme of time. In other words, there every clear indication life never changes as one can never avoid death. Every time, it takes away a loved one, leaves us in sadness but also with memories. Conclusion This poem is a great poem. The author tries to tell us that people can live their lives in many different ways but death is absolute and inevitable no matter what one does or where one goes. Even if it goes unnoticed, it cannot be