Discussing One Of These Themes Listed

Poetry Essay

3-4 page double spaced Microsoft word essay regarding one or two of the poems we have taught over, discussing one of these themes listed. See me if you have any outside analysis ideas. Due the week of Nov. 3rd, Microsoft Word, Times New Roman , Size 12

 

Possible themes:

Genre and style

Style and topic

Historical background

Author relationship to text

Political – social movements

Religious symbolism

Innocence and experience

Childhood and adulthood

Themes of Romance and relationships

Race relations and prejudice

Social class

Nature and technology

Definitions of Good and evil

Inevitability and finality

Themes of Chaos

Hubris

Self fulfilling destruction

Peace and instability and violence

The nature of God and ideology

Text Legacy

 

THESE ARE ALL THE LISTED POEMS (PICK FROM ANY) > The New Colossus > BY EMMA LAZARUS Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” >  > IF WE MUST DIE > BY CLAUDE MCKAY If we must die, let it not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursèd lot. If we must die, O let us nobly die, So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack, Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back! > Child of the Americas  > By Aurora Levins Morales >  I am a child of the Americas,
a light-skinned mestiza of the Caribbean,
a child of many diaspora, born into this continent at a crossroads.
I am a U.S. Puerto Rican Jew,
a product of the ghettos of New York I have never known.
An immigrant and the daughter and granddaughter of immigrants.
I speak English with passion: it’s the tongue of my consciousness,
a flashing knife blade of crystal, my tool, my craft. I am Caribeña, island grown. Spanish is my flesh,
Ripples from my tongue, lodges in my hips:
the language of garlic and mangoes,
the singing of poetry, the flying gestures of my hands.
I am of Latinoamerica, rooted in the history of my continent:
I speak from that body. I am not African. Africa is in me, but I cannot return.
I am not taína. Taíno is in me, but there is no way back.
I am not European. Europe lives in me, but I have no home there. I am new. History made me. My first language was spanglish. I was born at the crossroads and I am whole. > So Mexicans Are Taking Jobs from Americans > By Jimmy Santiago Baca O Yes? Do they come on horses with rifles, and say, Ese gringo, gimmee your job? And do you, gringo, take off your ring, drop your wallet into a blanket spread over the ground, and walk away? I hear Mexicans are taking your jobs away. Do they sneak into town at night, and as you’re walking home with a whore, do they mug you, a knife at your throat, saying, I want your job?  Even on TV, an asthmatic leader crawls turtle heavy, leaning on an assistant, and from a nest of wrinkles on his face, a tongue paddles through flashing waves of lightbulbs, of cameramen, rasping “They’re taking our jobs away.” Well, I’ve gone about trying to find them, asking just where the hell are these fighters. The rifles I hear sound in the night are white farmers shooting blacks and browns whose ribs I see jutting out and starving children, I see the poor marching for a little work, I see small white farmers selling out to clean-suited farmers living in New York, who’ve never been on a farm, don’t know the look of a hoof or a the smell of a woman’s body bending all day long in fields. I see this, and I hear only a few people got all the money in this world, the rest count their pennies to buy bread and butter. Below that cool green sea of money, millions and millions of people fight to live, search for pearls in the darkest depths of their dreams, hold their breath for years trying to cross poverty to just having something.  The children are dead already. We are killing them, that is what America should be saying; on TV, in the streets, in offices, should be saying, “We aren’t giving the children a chance to live.” Mexicans are taking our jobs, they say instead. What they really say is, let them die, and the children too.