Homework

2 Pages 528 Words

Poem 1: “The Unbeliever” by Elizabeth Bishop

1. This poem is about communication between a bird on the wing and the environment around it. It is very metaphorical. Obviously it is impossible for a bird and a cloud to speak to each other in words, but in this poem they speak with each other metaphorically. The imagery is of a bird flying over the ocean making sure it doesn’t fall into the water below which it believes wants it to fall and die. The reader has the sense of a bird fighting gravity and its sense that the sea below wants it to fall and die. This poem is full of metaphoric speech between the cloud and the bird. The cloud says, “I never move. See the pillars there in the sea?” My feeling on this is that there is harm down below and the cloud is trying to get the bird to look down and endure the danger, but the bird refuses.
2. These feelings seem to relate to the ideas that are implicit because it implies indirectly that although there may be imminent danger you can learn to avoid being sucked into seeing it and thinking about it and just keep on track. An example is driving. There’s the imminent danger of crashing into an on-coming car or off a bridge or into a wall, but the driver still drives without thinking about the dangers that could take place. This poem is about determination even with so many things trying to bring you down. So this is why the ideas are implicit to the feelings because it is a simple story about a bird fighting the clouds and the wind and the water down below and staying on track and remaining determined.

Poem 2: “Homework” by Allen Ginberg
1. This poem is about the fact that the world is not perfect and that it needs to be “cleaned” in a way. This is a very metamorphic poem because metaphoric words are used to describe the cleaning of the different countries and the world. Phrases such as, “scrub up Africa” and “I’d wash the Amazon river” give the sensation of ...