In “The Big Book of Therapy”, Bob Hicok is conveying how special it is to be rare as in to be yourself by utilizing similes to exaggerate the incredible aspects of being rare. The author is comparing people to snowflakes, he says “If you think of humans as rare/ as snowflakes, your world/ is constantly melting.”, and this portrays how important it is to be yourself because if everyone was the same, there would be no excitement in the world. I believe the author is trying to convey the message of being yourself because there are too many people in the world who follow society's standards out of fear that they will be rejected and this creates bad emotions, therefore leading to a depressed world. The author then switches the role of a dog and a human to show that being different than everyone else is a good thing because people really appreciate rareness when the author says “If you think of humans as essential/ to keeping dogs happy,/ someone will always want/ to buy you a beer.”, and this emphasizes the true specialness of being yourself. The Big Book of Therapy Bob Hicok If you think of humans as rare as snowflakes, your world is constantly melting. If you think of humans as essential to keeping dogs happy, someone will always want to buy you a beer.
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In the poem “Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper”, Martin Espada utilizes a shift in the last stanza the emphasize the importance of hard work. The author tells of their job as a highschooler while enhancing the perfection of it to show that later in the poem when the teenager becomes a law student, their experience with work paid off. The author represents the importance of working hard to get what you desire in life. Espada shows how it may be painful, or frustrating during the process, but it will be worth it in the end. When Espada says “Ten years later, in law school,/ I knew that every legal pad/ was glued with the sting of hidden cuts,/ that every open law book/ was a pair of hands/ upturned and burning.”, she emphasizes her happiness with all the the hard work that she went through. Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper At sixteen, I worked after high school hours at a printing plant that manufactured legal pads: Yellow paper stacked seven feet high and leaning as I slipped cardboard between the pages, then brushed red glue up and down the stack. No gloves: fingertips required for the perfection of paper, smoothing the exact rectangle. Sluggish by 9 PM, the hands would slide along suddenly sharp paper, and gather slits thinner than the crevices of the skin, hidden. The glue would sting, hands oozing till both palms burned at the punch clock. Ten years later, in law school, I knew that every legal pad was glued with the sting of hidden cuts, that every open law book was a pair of hands upturned and burning.—Martín Espada
In the poem “To Help The Monkey Cross The Road”, Thomas Lux uses descriptive language of the scene to exaggerate the danger that the monkey is in to show the importance of a beginners life. The author is telling the readers that they would do anything to protect a learner because they are only just starting off and that they have great potential. It's almost as if the author is shooting the bullies in the poem. The author connects the idea of a kid almost reaching their goal until bullies try to stop him when the author says “it looks as though the anaconda or the crocodile will reach the monkey before he attains the river’s far bank”, and the line is telling of how close the monkey is to reaching its goal.
In the poem “Football”, Louis Jenkins conveys the importance of responsibility by including descriptive dialogue to illustrate that one must work with what they have. Jenkins tells of him and his friend throwing a shoe like and football and then compares it to many other fake things like “with that clear corn/ syrup on them because there was no maple syrup and they/ weren't very good.”, and this shows that use must be responsible and make do with what you have. At the end of the poem, he decides not to throw it and i'm not really sure why. Maybe he feels like he should of been able to afford an actual football so he doesn’t throw it. Maybe that isn’t his shoe and he decides that it's not fair to the person who owns the shoe. In the poem, “White-Eyes”, Mary Oliver uses vivid imagery to show how a beautiful bird, is just like the rest of the bird, just like people. A lot of times, people assume that people whose looks are more appealing have it easier. The author explains to us that it's not like that when she says “he wants to go to sleep”, and this shows that beautiful people receive the same emotions like everyone else does. People tend to not realize that everyone could have the same emotions and that everyone gets tired. Oliver shows us a deep connection between love and harmful thoughts. She does this when she says “that loves us, that is asleep now, and silent”, and this immediately signals the reader that the bird has had it, and that the bird is tired. There has been too much pressure on the bird to be beautiful, the bird loves everyone but cannot take it anymore. White-Eyes In winter all the singing is in the tops of the trees where the wind-bird with its white eyes shoves and pushes among the branches. Like any of us he wants to go to sleep, but he's restless-- he has an idea, and slowly it unfolds from under his beating wings as long as he stays awake But his big, round music, after all, is too breathy to last. So, it's over. In the pine-crown he makes his nest, he's done all he can. I don't know the name of this bird, I only imagine his glittering beak tucked in a white wing while the clouds-- which he has summoned from the north-- which he has taught to be mild, and silent-- thicken, and begin to fall into the world below like stars, or the feathers of some unimaginable bird that loves us, that is asleep now, and silent-- that has turned itself into snow. —Mary Oliver In the poem “Blue Willow”, Jody Gladding emphasizes the greatness of the world and questions why someone wouldn’t be happy with it by utilizing visual imagery of the most exciting aspects of the world. She describes small events by enhancing their beauty and greatness to show that we should be thankful of the world that we live in. When Gladding says “in China we wove through curtains of willow that tickled our necks let’s do that again”, she really embraces that excitement of the little things in life to the point where she would want to do them over and over again. All of the visual imagery of the world has a positive and uplifting vibes to it like when she says “and we'd double back idle there lifting our heads to the green rain”, and this emphasizes how rain shouldn’t bring you down and how important it is to stay positive. Blue Willow A pond will deepen toward the center like a plate we traced its shallow rim my mother steering my inner tube past the rushes where I looked for Moses we said it was a trip around the world in China we wove through curtains of willow that tickled our necks let's do that again and we'd double back idle there lifting our heads to the green rain swallows met over us later I dreamed of flying with them we had all the time in the world we had the world how could those trees be weeping? —Jody Gladding In the poem “Leaving the Island”, Linda Pastan utilizes visual imagery by comparing her preferences to emphasize her love for the ferry. She states that she would rather be on a ferry then do summer activities. When Pastan says “I’ll trade my swimsuit for a woolen coat”, she is proposing that she rather be on a ferry in fall attire then be at the beach in the swimsuit. Pastan continues to repeat that “The ferry is no simple pleasure boat”, and this enhances the importance that the ferry boat has to the author. She also uses repetition again when she says “We roll up rugs and strip the beds by rote”, and I am not entirely sure what the author means by this, but I can assume that it has something to do with enhancing the importance of the ferry. Overall, the poem stretches the importance and the love of ferries to the author by romanticizing the features of the ferry.
Leaving the Island We roll up the rugs and strip the beds by rote, Summer expires as it has done before. The ferry is no simple pleasure boat Nor are we simply cargo, though we’ll float Alongside heavy trucks — their stink and roar. We roll up rugs and strip the beds by rote. This bit of land whose lines the glaciers wrote Becomes the muse of memory once more; The ferry is no simple pleasure boat. I’ll trade my swimsuit for a woolen coat; The torch of autumn has but small allure. We roll up rugs and strip the beds by rote. The absences these empty shells denote Suggest the losses winter has in store. The ferry is no simple pleasure boat. The songs of summer dwindle to one note; The fog horn’s blast (which drowns this closing door.) We rolled up rugs and stripped the beds by rote. The ferry is no simple pleasure boat. —Linda Pastan In the poem “Smell and Envy”, Douglas Goetsch uses visual imagery of where he lives to emphasize that the value of poetry does not matter where you live. He begins to show some jealousy aspects as he says “You nature poets think you’ve got it, hostage somewhere in Vermont or Oregon”, and this indicates the envy he has for those poets living there and how he must write poetry in a dusty city. He compares the features of nature to the city when he says “birds dont call, our pigeons play it close to the vest”, and this shows that poetry is capable of being written anywhere. Though I do not think that he should target the nature poets. Everyone has it hard in their own way no matter where you live. You could be living in an amazing place and still have it rough. Poetry shouldn’t be criticized based on stereotypes, poetry is art and should be appreciated no matter what it is based on.
Smell and EnvyYou nature poets think you've got it, hostage somewhere in Vermont or Oregon, so it blooms and withers only for you, so all you have to do is name it: primrose - and now you're writing poetry, and now you ship it off to us, to smell and envy. But we are made of newspaper and smoke and we dunk your roses in vats of blue. Birds don't call, our pigeons play it close to the vest. When the moon is full we hear it in the sirens. The Pleiades you could probably buy downtown. Gravity is the receiver on the hook. Mortality we smell on certain people as they pass. —Douglas Goetsch In the poem “Smoking”, Elton Glaser conveys the harmfulness of smoking by utilizing visual imagery of the body's reaction to it showing how the convincing thoughts of smoking can lead to internal damage in your body. Glaser uses heavy imagery of the process of smoking when he says “And a slope of gold, a touch to the packed tobacco”, to show how mentally convincing smoking is by glorifying the cigarette. Soon, there is a transition in the poem going from a treasured cigarette to a human's body shutting down. It seems like Glaser is trying to tell the readers that he understands how convincing it is to smoke, but also knows the internal impacts it has on the body. Glaser begins to describe the cigarette using intense imagery while saying “Bold face of fire, the rage and sway of it, raw blue at the base”, and this glorifies the cigarette by giving it a exotic desire to it. The tone quickly changes when Glaser begins to darken the imagery, letting the cigarette harm the body when he says “To the black crust of lungs, tar and poisons in the pink”, and this connects the cigarette to danger. The author utilizes a shift in tone to demonstrate how a cigarette could be desirable, but at the same time, harmful. Glaser ends the poem continuing dark imagery of the cigarette when he says “London, at the end of December, in the dark and fog”, and the dark and fog are connected to the cigarettes smoke. Overall, I believe the author utilizes heavy imagery of the cigarette and a change in tone to show how anything that seems very tempting could be dangerous.
Smoking I like the cool and heft of it, dull metal on the palm, And the click, the hiss, the spark fuming into flame, Boldface of fire, the rage and sway of it, raw blue at the base And a slope of gold, a touch to the packed tobacco, the tip Turned red as a warning light, blown brighter by the breath, The pull and the pump of it, and the paper's white Smoothed now to ash as the smoke draws back, drawn down To the black crust of lungs, tar and poisons in the pink, And the blood sorting it out, veins tight and the heart slow, The push and wheeze of it, a sweep of plumes in the air Like a shako of horses dragging a hearse through the late centennium, London, at the end of December, in the dark and fog. —Elton Glaser |
AuthorNicolette LaMarr |