I was four in this photograph fishing
with my grandparents at a lake in Michigan. My brother squats in poison ivy. His Davy Crockett cap sits squared on his head so the raccoon tail flounces down the back of his sailor suit. My grandfather sits to the far right in a folding chair, and I know his left hand is on the tobacco in his pants pocket because I used to wrap it for him every Christmas. Grandmother's hips bulge from the brush, she's leaning into the ice chest, sun through the trees printing her dress with soft luminous paws. I am staring jealously at my brother; the day before he rode his first horse, alone. I was strapped in a basket behind my grandfather. He smelled of lemons. He's died-- but I remember his hands. Dove’s poem, Fifth Grade Autobiography, talks about the nostalgic childhood of the most important people in her life. Throughout the poem, she begins to recollect the personalities and memories of her grandparents and her brother by just looking at the picture. She looks at a photograph and recollects how wonderful and how important her family is by her language and her imagery. In the poem, the speaker looks back on the picture using their imagery. The speaker describes her family at a lake in Michigan. In the first stanza, she looks at her brother “squat(ing) in poison ivy”. Based on the way she uses squat, the speaker is making fun of her brother, for poison ivy leaves people with bruises after touching it. She also describes the Davy Crockett cap, sitting on his head, “flounc(ing) down the back of his sailor suit”. Based on the way she describes her brother as a rambunctious boy, with his cap and his outfit, letting the audience know how she perceives her brother. In the next stanza, the speaker describes her grandparents. Her grandfather “sits to the far right”, smoking a cigarette, but yet she describes the action as a good thing because she “used to wrap it for him every Christmas”. Her grandmother is leaning in the cooler, or ice chest in this matter, and while she does this, the sun prints “her dress with soft luminous paws”, as if the sun was a cat, cuddling her grandmother. The way she describes the sun cuddling her grandmother makes it seem like her grandmother is a peaceful woman and her grandfather is a more lenient man than others. On the last stanza, the speaker fast forward in time to the time she followed her grandfather. She was jealous to the fact that her brother was going to ride a horse alone, but her grandfather soothed her with his smell of lemons. Even though he’s dead, she stills “remember his hands” While the author recollects the memories of the photograph, she uses imagery and diction to show her how appreciative she is for her family. Every little thing she remembers about that photograph made her believe it was the most important detail for her life altogether.
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Just when hope withers, the visa is granted.
The door opens to a street like in the movies, clean of people, of cats; except it is your street you are leaving. A visa has been granted, 'provisionally'-a fretful word. The windows you have closed behind you are turning pink, doing what they do every dawn. Here it's gray. The door to the taxicab waits. This suitcase, the saddest object in the world. Well, the world's open. And now through the windshield the sky begins to blush as you did when your mother told you what it took to be a woman in this life. In Dove’s poem, Exit, Dove’s language makes the poem seem desolate but welcomed. The way she say certain items, like the windows, street, and suitcase, show how desolate it will be to leave the place you have grownup in, but it also shows what the risks are in chasing their dreams. Dove characterizes opportunity as a saddening but yet encouraging thing to chase through her use of imagery. In Dove’s poem, she is emphasizing the path of opportunity. She states, “Just when hope withers, the visa is granted.” This gives a sense of ambiguous imagery. With this, Dove is replacing visa with opportunity to show how the phrase “the door of opportunity” is limited (visa is defined to let a person stay in a country for a specific period of time). Throughout the poem, Dove uses precise imagery to state how hard it is to leave your home in order to chase opportunity. It states “the door opens to a street like in the movies…except it is your street you are leaving”, making the speaker look back on their home and what they are giving up in order to chase this once in a lifetime opportunity, and continues to state this by saying “The windows you have closed behind you are turning pink, doing what they do every dawn. Here it's gray… This suitcase, the saddest object in the world." proving that it is going to be a difficult time to adapt to the situation. As the poem progresses, the imagery starts to change. At this point, it gives how the speaker actually feels about leaving. The speaker uses the sky in order to compare to the speaker's feeling towards leaving. As the speaker starts out with, “Well, the world’s open,” it shows that the speaker is ready to embrace the world of opportunities. As the speaker is embracing this fact, “the sky begins to blush as you did when your mother told you what it took to be a woman in this life.” showing the joy of the speaker to explore the endless opportunities of the vast world. The imagery here gives a feeling of satisfaction and acceptance of the speaker “going for the opportunity". In water-heavy nights behind grandmother's porch
We knelt in the tickling grasses and whispered: Linda's face hung before us, pale as a pecan, And it grew wise as she said: 'A boy's lips are soft, As soft as baby's skin.' The air closed over her words. A firefly whirred near my ear, and in the distance I could hear streetlamps ping Into miniature suns Against a feathery sky. This is one of Rita Dove's famous poems, "Adolescence I". The poem reveals her childhood memories before the change of her life has started. This poem reflects the innocence of a child before turning into the change of the century: becoming a teenager. As Dove presents, innocence is something that is best kept in people all around, so they can see the world differently. The speaker of the poem may be unclear, but it can be inferred that the speaker is a child. The child is playing with her friend or sister when the grandmother, Linda, shows up. At this time, Linda says, "A boy's lips are soft, As soft as a baby's skin," which is the start of introducing a lesson about relationships. However, the girls are not talking about relationships; they are basically playing and whispering to each other. Linda adds the comment in order to show the child's innocence, because the speaker may not want to know about boys or how a boy's lips are. This is the start of letting the speaker wonder about becoming a teenager or adolescence. The way Dove presents the poem shows the innocent mind of children. The way she says "tickling grasses and whispered" and "A firefly whirred near my ear" shows that its a friendly attitude. It is as though the author is trying to relive the happy memory before learning about being an adolescent. The friendly tone adds to the innocence of children, saying that children are always playful and their view of the world is different from the way the "streetlights ping" and turn "into miniature suns". This however changes with Linda's comment about boys, which eventually makes her wonder about adolescence. Dove uses the topic of innocence to conclude the theme that people should have innocence in their life, because they will never know to view the world from a child's view. Dove wants to audience to find a sense of innocence in their life in order to still be a child at heart. |
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