Demetrius Walters
English 112(L)
Philip Quam
Monday, Wednesday and Friday 8am
Essay #2
Poetry is a story that is written to make the reader feel some type of way towards a particular situation or event. Word choice, tone and imagery are some of the main focus points towards writing good poetry. Tim Seibles, Brian Turner, Tony Hoagland and Philip Levine wrote poetry that these characteristics are shown throughout their poems. This paper will cover diction, tone and imagery of four poems.
Brian Turner “The Hurt Locker” is a free verse poem. It was written in no particular or specific form. The tone is not relaying on physical pain, but emotional pain that people carry around after experiencing some type of bad situation. “Nothing but hurt left here” (B. Turner),
Word choice or diction in this poem is briefly concentrated and centered around one thing of making the reader believe that they are experiencing this pain. “Believe it when you see it” (B. Turner). This sets up the imagery that puts the reader in the action itself and it carries the reader to an emotional stance. “Believe it when a twelve-year-old rolls a grenade into a room” (B. Turner). Having experience a life or death situation, the narrator want the reader to really see what a soldier carries on the inside of them, the emotions baggage that has no limit to it. “Open the hurt locker and learn how rough men come hunting for souls”
“Kerosene” written by Tim Seibles is a free verse written poem. It is a narrative poem. The tone is bent around anger due to what was happening in Los Angeles at the time. (L.A. riots). “In my country the weather is not too good” (T. Seibles), this is telling the reader that there is trouble. Word choice is emphasing towards hurt and anger. Similes are used within the last few lines, “like blood filling cracks in the street slowly” and “like candles seen through thick curtains” (T.Seibles). This can be taken as when the president arrived, he was shocked as to how bad the situation was. It not a high priority on his agenda, but he had to address it. Caesura is used in this poem also just to create that natural pause to emphasize some word or phrases.
“America” written by Tony Hoagland is a narrative poem. The tone of the poem is set when a student reacts to another student’s comment about America and prison. “America is for him a maximum security prison” (T. Hoaglund). The student explains what the prison is made of, “whose walls are made of Radio Shacks, Burger Kings and MTV episodes” (T. Hoaglund). Then the tone starts to shift when the student starts to think about the dream he had involving his father. “Freed from that which kept me from my liberty”. (T. Hoaglund). Those words made him reconsider whether or not he was dreaming or was the other student correct about how he really felt about America. Imagery can be seen towards the end of the poem when he speaks about watching the rivers of bright merchandise running past you, while you are in your own dream world. That change his total outlook on how he feel about America and how to wake up from this dream.
“Call It Music” was written by Philip Levine. This is a narrative poem. The tone is mellow, kind of creating a pleasant atmosphere. There is little to no rhyme scheme. Word choice or diction is not emphasize in the poem. Imagery is used more to an allusion in this poem. “The whole process has a name, a word I don’t know” (P. Levine). He is looking for something and the closest thing that come close to it is the music by Charlie Parker. Charlie was someone that he looked up to and respected for his music.
Emotions are your true feeling that none can take from you. To live life you will have good times and bad times. In “The Hurt Locker”, we saw how much emotional pain soldiers carry with them after wars. “Call It Music”, we see how someone deals with the death of a close friend or mentor. “Kerosene”, people deal with racial issues in violence in which it causes more problems. In “America,” by looking at problems from another person’s point of view can make you come up with solutions to your problem.