‘A Vision’ is a wonderful poem by Simon Armitage, that featured in Tyrannosaurus Rex versus the

Corduroy Kid. It creates a warm, inviting tone and describes the ideals of a model of a city. But at
each turn, the ideas that this espouses are refuted and subverted. Sometimes very subtly never
revealing genuine problems with these ideals until the final sentence where this vision of an ideal
future is finally dismissed totally. What makes ‘A Vision’ so captivating is its ability to come across
as so positive and warm when in actuality it is as if the poet is so ―snarky‖ as to make his
opinions of the ideas put forward by the model builder as laughable. If you examine the poem
carefully there are hints as to the nature of the poem right from the start when he describes the
future as being good and then uses ―once‖ that word sets off the poem in the fashion that it
continues in raising the positives of this imagined future but then undermining them
imperceptibly. ‘A Vision’ is written in free verse. It is four stanzas long and each stanza consists of
five lines. There is no rhyming . ‘A Vision’ uses striking imagery to create a vision of a sort
of utopian future.

The first line of the poem, which can be read in full here, is very striking as Armitage refers to the
future but in the past tense. This line taken in isolation is very jarring but is explained as the
poem unfolds. He then continues to explain that the vision of the future he is referring to is one
that is inspired by a model of a village that would have been on display in a civic hall. What I find
interesting here is that Armitage‘s narrator describes the future (and by that, we assume that the
building itself is almost a metaphor for the future in general) as a beautiful place but the
description of the building‘s blueprints contain smoked glass and tubular steel. Both of these
descriptions give an impression, not of beauty, but of an industrial feel. This runs in contrast to
the description of the model itself. Armitage uses alliteration in ―the full-blown balsa wood‖
description. Balsa wood models could certainly appear beautiful and the alliteration helps lend
that idea to the model. What is also prominent is the fragile nature of balsa wood
in comparison to the rigidity of steel.

2 I love the phrase ―board game suburbs‖ it gives the reader such a wonderful feeling of
community spirit. Although I think this phrase is subversive, suggesting that the ideals
represented by this model are unrealistic, childlike in some ways. There is further credence given
to this theory as he uses the imagery of fairground rides and then executive toys. Executive toys
being an oxymoron gives this poem yet another contradiction, further subverting its meaning.
The idea of a cantilever of light whilst sounding immensely positive is once again a bit
contradictory. A cantilever is a feature in architecture designed to ensure stability and a solid
structure. Having one created of light would mean a city that was balanced on effectively
nothing. The narrator then turns his attention to the people of this utopian future. They are
wholesome doing the sort of activities that a good, cultured person might do. Walking their dog,
recycling, etc.

3 Throughout ‗A Vision’ Armitage creates an image of a lovely future but constantly underpins
this by phrases and clever poetic tricks that make it seem like the narrator is being sarcastic or
perhaps to give a sense of foreboding as if to say – things aren‘t going to work out like that.
Fuzzy-felt grass not only uses alliteration to highlight the description, but the word itself ―fuzzy‖,
could be used to put across the narrator‘s opinion. The fuzziness represents uncertainty over the
future. Once again in this stanza, the narrator talks about an idealized civilization that drives
electric cars. The final sentence of this stanza states that the aforementioned vision was the
―plan(s)‖ he then says they were all written in the neat left hand. There is some ambiguity as to
what this means. Left-handedness has a negative connotation that unfairly exists in modern
culture. There is a phrase ―a left-handed compliment‖ which means something is actually an
insult. Left-handedness is also wrongly associated with the devil and misdoings. Could this
reference to left-handedness be relevant? It‘s hard to imagine that it isn‘t significant in some way

.4I think this line is deliberately enjambment, running on from the previous stanza to add tension
as the poem starts to draw towards its close. The use of the word ―true‖ is interesting here. I
don‘t think that the narrator believes that the architects were ―true‖, but perhaps suggests that
their ideas were? The end of this stanza is almost like a revelation and gives the poem its
meaning as it is revealed that these plans were discovered by the narrator at a landfill site. There
is a certain sadness that firstly these plans were clearly never carried out. If they had they
wouldn‘t appear on a landfill site on the day that they were due to be used. But also because of
all the other ―unfilled futures‖ the landfill site almost acts as a metaphor for what did happen in
the future. There are no wealth of electric cars and masses of people recycling and working
together to save the planet. Just a giant landfill site filled with the dreams of yesterday. The
narrator even goes so far as to say those dreams are extinct
AlabanzaThis is a poem by an acclaimed poet Martin Espada that honors the forty-three
members of Local 100, who died in 9/11 attacks.The workers were placed in the North Tower,
along with the windows of World restaurant of The World Trade Center building. The poem
“Alabanza” is structured into the proper structure of seven parts. Espada pens down his
emotional response to the event of 9/11. He found himself deprived of words and shocked at the
gruesome scene of 9/11, especially more so after he realized the deaths of so many immigrant
workers that were working by the windows of the World Restaurant. The shear preview into the
oncoming death, picturing their emotional condition, still haunts him and as such he conveyed
his emotions through the words in Alabanza, in an attempt to relate what those workers may
have felt. “Alabanza” as the title actually translates to “praise” in Spanish, although Espada’s
interpretation of implying this word in the poem is to indicate his praise for the immigrant
workers. The poem transforms from mourning into praise since it conveys the praise for those
lives, the many hours they contributed towards working and their dedication but ultimately the
poem is a means to hold on to the memories of lives that were lost that day.In his poem, Espada
signifies the importance of life by stating that each life lost that day is equally as valuable as a
soldier or fireman, who dedicate their lives against terrorism. The importance implicated in his
style of free verse by mentioning, Though as if struck by lightning that these simple yet
complicated lives of people, working that day, ceased to exist. The author is so horrified over the
brutality of the situation, the fear so gripping that he too cannot express it in any easier form.
However, from Espada’s concern, from his poem, can be deduced to his attention towards the
immigrants and the ways that are taken to dehumanize them, neglecting their needs and
avoiding any debate regarding the recognition of their rights in society. At the very end, Espada
leaves the reader with a message, pleading to their humanity and attempt towards locating a
general sense of solidarity in it. The method of employing the using of telling the reader rather
than preaching them is relevantly much more accommodating than what most poets implement
in their poetry. Alabanza is noted to be quite unique in its style, since it is not based on a system
of continuous rants, laid out one on top of another rather Espada transfers his message through
his words, making them easily understandable, relatable and realistic. Being concerned for the
aftermaths of the 9/11 tragedy which would directly impact the lives of many immigrants, being
affected by hate and aggressiveness. Even though most of the individuals, working in the
kitchens of the World Restaurant were undocumented individuals, who lost their lives that very
day along with so many others but their misery remains unheard of, even now. Imposing the
question towards the reader, along with a plea, Espada attempts to evoke an emotional
response within the hearts of many through his words. Entwined with words of art, carrying a
purpose in them, Martin Espada hopes to reawaken human potential not only to provide an
interesting approach towards the topic but to motivate every single person to take an initiative
towards it as well. Alabanza carries in it both private and personal forms of histories for the
public, eliciting a meaning out of the tragedy and highlighting the impact of it on human lives.
Although from a close analysis of Espada’s poem, his words often tend to come off as harsh,
dark and tragic, however, the selection of the word “Alabanza” is specifically chosen to represent
smaller forms of victories through various acts of defiance which most of the protagonists are
remembered for. The compassion towards the word draws out people’s actual association
towards praising the stories and lives of many which are finally surfacing.
The word “alabanza” can be translated into English as “praise,” and the idea of
praise runs through much of Martín Espada’s poetry. Growing up in Brooklyn, New
York, Espada learned at an early age that it was difficult, if not impossible, for many
Hispanic immigrants to make a living. His father, Frank Espada, was active in the
American Civil Rights movement during the 1950’s. The elder Espada was born in
Puerto Rico, and after settling in New York City he became a leading activist in the
Puerto Rican community. The young Espada learned from his father that minorities
needed to work twice as hard as others in order to have a chance to succeed in the
United States. As a teenager, Martín started expressing himself through poetry.
Writing became an obsession for him, and it consumed almost all his time.After
earning a law degree from Northeastern University School of Law in 1985, Espada
worked in Chelsea, Massachusetts, as a tenant lawyer. He wanted to make a
difference and did his best to assist those who had been victimized by the American
legal bureaucracy. Espada was determined to write poetry that put a spotlight on
how the less fortunate in the United States have attempted to succeed against all
odds. Since 1993, Espada has been an English professor at the University of
Massachusetts, Amherst.Espada believes that a poet can wear many hats.
According to him, the poet can be a journalist, a teacher, a sociologist, and a
historian. As a historian, Espada writes poetry that “challenges the official history.”
He finds heroes in those who have been forgotten. In a 2002 interview, he quoted
the nineteenth century poet Walt Whitman as having said, “The duty of the poet is
to cheer up slaves and horrify despots.” This sentiment fits perfectly with Espada’s
approach to his own role as a poet.Alabanza is divided into seven parts. The first six
parts include selections from Espada’s six previous poetry collections. The seventh
part contains seventeen new poems. Espada’s first collection, The Immigrant
Iceboy’s Bolero, was published in 1982. Six poems were chosen for Alabanza and
represent some of Espada’s earliest published poetry. In “Jim’s Blind Blues,” the
poet describes the relationship between two brothers, one of whom is a heroin
addict. The poem opens with the line, “There are some things/ doctors can’t fix,/ his
brother said./ Heroin and diabetes.” Unfortunately, it was impossible for one brother
to save the other, who was consumed by his addiction to heroin.Espada’s second
collection, Trumpets from the Islands of Their Eviction, was published in 1987 and is
represented in Alabanza by twelve poems. The title poem of his second volume
presents everyday challenges faced by Puerto Rican immigrants to New York. The
first stanza vividly invokes the swirl of life, with the lines “immigrants with Spanish
mouths/ hear trumpets/ from the islands of their eviction./ The music swarms into
the barrio/ of a refugee’s imagination,/ along with predatory squad cars/ and
bullying handcuffs.” The balance that Espada understands is necessary in his poetry
allows for the wedding of art and message. Without his art as a poet, the message
would come across as self-indulgent rhetoric. In an interview, Espada said he wants
his work to be “based on the image,” because “the image will show and that should
be enough.” He believes in the old adage that a writer should strive to show and not
merely tell.In 1990 Espada published Rebellion Is the Circle of a Lover’s Hands, his
third volume of poetry. This collection was heralded as his most forceful to date. In
addition to the Paterson Poetry Prize, the book was awarded the PEN/Revson
Fellowship, and the judges’ citation for this award stated, “The greatness of
Espada’s art, like all great arts, is that it gives dignity to the insulted and the injured
of the earth.” There are seventeen poems from this collection included in Alabanza.
In the foreword toRebellion Is the Circle of a Lover’s Hands, Amiri Baraka, the poet,
playwright, and black activist, said that Espada’s poetry “does not necessitate
fantasy as its voice, it illuminates reality.”One of the pieces in this collection that
drives home this point is the short lyric poem “Latin Night at the Pawnshop.” Espada
was inspired to write this poem after walking by a Chelsea pawnshop during the
1987 Christmas season. He was practicing law in Chelsea at the time, and it was not
out of the ordinary for him to pass the pawnshop on his way from his office to the
Chelsea district court. On this occasion, he was inspired to make sense of what he
saw in the window of the pawnshop: musical instruments that could be found in a
salsa band. The poet sees “a salsa band/ gleaming in the Liberty Loan/ pawnshop
window.” Espada also imagines that such instruments as the “Golden trumpet,” the
“silver trombone,” the “congas,” and the “maracas” had made beautiful, life-
affirming music in the past and sees it as tragic that they would end up in a
pawnshop. All of the instruments have “price tags dangling,” which make him flash
on a “city morgue ticket/ on a dead man’s toe.” The fate of these instruments
represents, for the poet, the fate of the Latin culture, a culture that seemingly has
been tossed away without regard or respect.Espada is able, quite brilliantly, to take
a small specific episode or incident and let it stand for a more universal cultural
predicament. It is never his intent, though, to hammer the reader over the head
with his political views. If the individual poem works on all intended levels, then the
poet’s purpose will have been served.Espada chose fourteen poems from his fourth
collection, City of Coughing and Dead Radiators (1993), for Alabanza. Once again,
the poet takes up the challenge of merging the political with the poetic. The danger
for the poet is always that his art will be overwhelmed by political rhetoric, by
strident slogans. In the title poem of this collection, the poet paints startlingly vivid
images of the poor who struggle to survive in Chelsea. The poem opens with “I
cannot evict them/ from my insomniac nights,/ tenants in the city of coughing/ and
dead radiators.” The poor live under the constant weight of the legal system. They
live in rooms where they must “protect food/ from ceilings black with roaches,” and
yet they are hounded to pay rent or be thrown out into the cold. Never sentimental
in his approach, Espada is matter-of-fact, with a pinch of sardonic humor.His 1996
collection, Imagine the Angels of Bread, won the American Book Award for poetry.
He has included twenty-one poems from this major collection in Alabanza. The title
poem opens with the intriguing line, “This is the year that squatters evict landlords.”
Even though such a scenario is not likely to happen, Espada is willing to be
optimistic. Without hope, there can be no change, no poetry that rattles the
imagination. The title poem ends with the line, “So may every humiliated mouth,/
teeth like desecrated headstones,/ fill with the angels of bread.” This poem
magnificently sets the tone for the whole collection.In 2000 Espada published his
sixth volume, A Mayan Astronomer in Hell’s Kitchen. As evidenced by his earlier
works, the poet is relentless in his advocacy of those who are disadvantaged.
Fourteen poems from this volume are included in Alabanza. In the poem “My Name
Is Espada,” he takes pride in saying that the word “espada” means “sword” in
Spain. The family name will survive, and, therefore, the family will survive.
One of the most tender and humorous poems from the collection is one that Espada
dedicates to his wife, Katherine. After reading the title “I Apologize for Giving You
Poison Ivy by Smacking You in the Eye with the Crayfish at the End of My Fishing
Line,” a reader can conclude that something quite amusing is about to take place in
the poem. It opens with the revelatory lines “I apologize for not knowing how to
fish./ In Brooklyn all the fish are dead,/ from the goldfish spinning in the toilet bowl/
to the bluefish on ice at the market/ with eyes like Republicans campaigning for
Congress.” Espada’s environment has left him clueless as to what fishing entails,
and Katherine pays the price for his ignorance.The acclaimed writer Marge Piercy
has commented that Espada’s power as a poet comes from “his range, his
compassion, his astonishing images, his sense of history, his knowledge of the lives
on the underbelly of cities, his bright anger, his tenderness, his humor.”
With Alabanza, all of Espada’s attributes as a poet are on display.The seventeen
new poems of Alabanza enhance Espada’s reputation as a major American poet. He
believes that poetry can make a difference and leave its mark on the cultural psyche
of North America. Along with millions of other Americans, Espada was touched by
the terrorist attacks and their tragic consequences on September 11, 2001. The last
poem of the book, “Alabanza: In Praise of Local 100,” honors the forty-three union
“members of Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees, Local 100, working at the
Windows on the World restaurant, who lost their lives in the attack on the World
Trade Center.” These workers were immigrants who had taken the subway to work
and who would not be returning home. Espada gives praise to all of them, no matter
their country of origin. In reference to September 11, Espada has stated that
“Poetry humanizes. Poetry gives a human face to a time like this. Poetry gives eyes
and a mouth and a voice to a time like this.”For those who are not familiar with
Espada’s poetry, Alabanza will serve as a marvelous introduction to the poet’s
astonishing work. For those who have followed Espada’s growth as a poet from
collection to collection, the seventeen new poems will profoundly touch the heart,
but there also may be a twinge of disappointment that many fine poems from his
earlier collections have been omitted. It is hoped that the publication
of Alabanza will bring greater recognition to Espada as not merely a powerful voice
for the Hispanic community and the immigrant community but as a voice for all
residents of the United States.
Atlantis is a fictional island mentioned by the Greek philosopher Plato
in his dialogues “Timaeus” and “Critias”. He describes it as an island
located in the Atlantic Ocean just beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Strait
of Gibraltar) that was favored by the sea god Poseidon. However, as
the Atlantis grew in power and territory, their ethics declined. As a
result, the gods punished them by sending deadly earthquakes and
floods, causing the island to sink into the ocean in just a day. Though
generally accepted as pseudohistory, Atlantis has still managed to
inspire musicians, painters, writers, poets, and even filmmakers
throughout the years. Scientists continue to argue about the inspiration
behind Atlantis- whether there was ever one or not. Artists, however,
are least concerned with these hypotheses. To them, Atlantis is the
perfect metaphor for something no longer attainable. It is a lost
memory, something one is nostalgic for. This something could be a
place, an event, a feeling, a person, or something once shared with a
person.Boland explores all these perspectives in a simple but moving
way in less than 20 lines. The poem’s speaker talks about Plato’s
Atlantis and also likens its disappearance to the loss of someone she
still longs for. The speaker doesn’t miss just this person, she also
yearns for the things she has associated with them- the city they once
shared, their meetings in doorways, and low skies under which they
headed home together. The line “white pepper, white pudding” could
be a metaphor for the binary nature of their relationship- her side of the
story and the other person’s (white peppercorns come from the same
plant as black ones and a certain recipe can yield both white and black
pudding). In the end, she concludes that Atlantis might have been
created by humans to represent the loss of something that can never
be restored. So, like the human habit of burying pain in words, we
called this lost thing “Atlantis” and drowned it in hopes that in doing so,
we are able to move on from such a tragic loss
August: Osage County is a black comedy by American playwright Tracy Letts.
First staged at the Steppenwolf Theater in June 2007, it went on to a 648-
performance run on Broadway, eventuallywinning the Tony Award and the Drama
Desk Award for Best Play. It is also the winner of the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for
Drama. Centering on a tense family reunion in a small Oklahoma town, the play is
dominated by Violet Weston, an eccentric family matriarch who has a contentious
relationship with her husband and children. When a family tragedy brings all the
survivors together again, old wounds and hurts are reopened as the family is
forced to confront its past and presence. Set during several weeks in August, the
play exploresthemes of family, secrets, and small-town Americana in an
unflinching tone, August: Osage County is considered the defining work of
Letts’career and one of the best modern American plays. It has been staged
around the world and in 2013 was adapted into a star-studded feature film
including Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts, both of whom received Academy Award
nominations.

The play opens with Beverly Weston, a once-famous poet, interviewing a young
Cheyenne woman named Johnna for a job. Beverly is seeking a caregiver for his
wife, Violet, who is being treated for mouth cancer. Violet, a heavy smoker, is
addicted to multiple prescription drugs and is behaving more and more erratically.
Beverly, who admits to being an alcoholic, converses freely with Johnna about
Violet’s problems until Violet enters. The two have a brief argument, Violet goes
upstairs, and Beverly hires Johnna and returns to his drink as the prologue ends.

Act One opens a month later. Beverly’s been missing for several weeks. Family
members have gathered in the house, including Violet’s daughter Ivy, her sister
Mattie Fae, and Mattie Fae’s husband Charlie. When Violet isn’t trying to track
down her husband, she’s picking fights with her family, especially the perpetually
single Ivy. The family gets word that Beverly’s boat has been found abandoned,
and everyone fears he’s committed suicide. Ivy’s older sister Barbara arrives with
her husband Bill and her teenage daughter Jean. Barbara hasn’t seen her mother
in years and is less than thrilled to be back home. Violet quickly picks a fight and
accuses Barbara of abandoning the family and breaking her father’s heart. Jean
bonds with Johnna over some marijuana and tells Johnna that her parents are
separated but haven’t told anyone yet. Bill and Barbara argue before they head to
bed, and it turns out Bill is sleeping with one of his students. At 5 AM, Sheriff Deon
Gilbeau—Barbara’s ex boyfriend—rings the doorbell and reveals that Beverly’s
body has been found drowned. Violet is too drugged to go identify the body, so
Barbara goes.
In Act Two, the family arrives home from Beverly’s funeral. Violet goes to her
husband’s office and yells at him about his recent abuse of prescription drugs.
Before Johnna can prepare dinner, more arguments errupt. The third sister, Karen,
arrives with her new fiancée, and her chipper attitude about her upcoming wedding
unnerves Barbara. Ivy reveals that she’s seeing someone but refuses to say who,
while Mattie Fae and her husband bicker over how to parent their inconsiderate
son Little Charles, who overslept and missed the funeral. Karen’s fiancée Steve
finds out that Jean smokes pot and offers her some of his, lewdly flirting with th e
teenager. It is revealed that Ivy is actually involved with her cousin, Little Charles.
At dinner, Violet begins needling and insulting all her family members. She
discusses Beverly’s will at the table, then reveals Barbara and Bill’s separation to
the whole family. When Barbara yells at her, Violet justifies herself by revealing
her addiction. This devolves into a physical fight between mother and daughter,
and Barbara orders the family to raid the house to find Violet’s pills.

In Act Three, the three sisters have a drink and discuss the drama. Barbara says
that Violet’s doctor thinks she has brain damage and Ivy reveals that she and Little
Charles are planning to run away to New York. Violet enters. She says she’s
resigned to facing death and apologizes to her daughter, creating a temporary
peace. Charlie loses his patience with Mattie Fae over her consistently cruel
behavior towards Little Charles and threatens to leave her unless she changes.
Barbara lets the affair between the two cousins slip, but is shocked when Mattie
Fae reveals that Little Charles is not Charlie’s son, but Beverly’s, the product of an
old affair. Ivy and Little Charles are half-siblings, and everyone realizes they need
to find a way to end the affair. That night, while Steve and Jean share a joint, he
attempts to molest her. Johnna sees this and attacks Steve with a shovel. Jean
angrily lashes out at her parents about her father’s affair, and Barbara slaps her.
Karen refuses to believe what Johnna saw and leaves with Steve, while Bill
decides to leave with Jean. He tells Barbara he wants a divorce. Two weeks later,
Barbara is still staying with Violet and now drinking heavily herself. When Officer
Gilbeau drops by with more news about her father’s case, he and Barbara briefly
reconnect, but nothing comes of it. Ivy has dinner with Barbara and Violet and tries
to tell her mother about her affair with Little Charles. Violet reveals their family
connection, and Ivy is horrified. She decides to never tell Little Charles and leaves
for New York without him. The play ends with one last nasty confrontation between
Barbara and Violet. Violet blames Barbara for Beverly’s suicide. Having finally had
enough, Barbara realizes her mother is beyond help and leaves. The play ends
with Violet and Johnna alone in the house.

Tracy Letts is an American playwright, screenwriter, and actor. He won the Tony
Award, Drama Desk Award, and Pulitzer Prize for August: Osage County. In
addition, he won a Tony award for acting for his role as George in Who’s Afraid of
Virginia Woolf? in 2013. He has written screenplays for three films, including two
collaborations with director William Friedkin. He is also known for his role as
Senator Andrew Lockhart on Showtime’s Homeland, for which he was nominated
for a Screen Actors Guild Award along with the rest of the cast.

The poem "Deto(nation)" is the twenty-seventh poem in Ocean Vuong's Night Sky
with Exit Wounds, and it is the fourth poem of the book's third section. The poem
details the speaker's struggle to reconcile his memories of his father with the pain
associated with such memories. The speaker hopes to be able to eliminate the pain
associated with his father through writing ("To even write father / is to carve a
portion of the day out of a bomb-bright page"), but ultimately is unable to do so
entirely. At the poem's end, the speaker figuratively runs from all the "light" that
confronting the memory of his father brings (evocative of a light which reveals the
true misdeeds and trauma perpetrated by the father in the past) into the "night,"
The poem, despite being
where a clouded memory of the father resides.
short, is highly crafted and technical, even in its title. The poem's
concern with fatherhood, as well as the concern with nationhood as
highlighted by the title's parenthesis, has appeared in many other
poems in the collection—for example, "To My Father / To My Future
Son" ("You move through me like rain / heard / from another
country. / Yes, you have a country.")—but is here reiterated and
refined. The erasure of "nation" in the title—coupled with the
speaker's father living in the distance of night—would seem to
suggest that the father is representative of both a faded memory and
a literal distant place. This is commensurate with the understanding
of Ocean Vuong's father developed in the collection's other poems of
the father as both immigrant and absent. The two concepts have
become muddled with time and trauma, as they have in the later
poem "Daily Bread."
And this trauma runs deep: despite being able to recognize this ironic
parental trauma as a kind of "joke," the speaker still recognizes that it
has the force of a "bomb saying here is your father." Moreover, the
trauma left by the father penetrates to the speaker's insides, even the
parts that are keeping him alive: "here is your father inside / your
lungs." The duality of lightness is then introduced into the poem, with
one valence referring to a lack of weight and the other referring to
brightness. While the speaker is able to confront the fraught memory
of their father and make the earth "lighter" in doing so, writing this
out and enacting it requires the speaker to almost be blinded by the
light shed on his father's actions: "To even write father / is to carve a
portion of the day / out of a bomb-bright page." The horror the
speaker feels at writing such words is evocative of the process of
writing as tackled in the later poem "Logophobia." Even though it is
expressed as light, this light is harmful to the speaker and cannot be
internalized as something positive: "There's enough light to drown in
/ but never enough to enter the bones / & stay." This conflict that the
speaker faces—confronting the father's past in all evil but getting a
weight off his own chest in the process—is emphasized by the
enjambment which juxtaposes "& stay" with "Don't stay here." The
father seems to reach forward in time and dissuade the son from
confronting the truth that resides in the light, and the son acquiesces.
He runs "into the night" where his clouded or incomplete picture of
his father lives, and in response, his shadow grows "toward [his]
father." The forces that have been pulling at the speaker the entire
poem have been emphasized by the dual nature of the poem's
couplets, but in the decisive action to run toward the father, the
poetic form breaks, and a definite action has been taken by the final
singleton line.
The play explores the relationship between China and America.
Chimerica is a fuse of words ‗China‘ and ‗America.‘ Lucy Kirkwood is
the play's author, which contains five acts and thirty-nine scenes. The
play contains elements of comic genres, romance, and thriller. The
main character in the play is Joe Schofield, a photojournalist who, in
1989, took a picture of an unknown man, Tank Man, in Tiananmen
Square during the demonstrations. Tank Man was photographed
standing in the way of the Chinese Tanks, symbolizing resistance of
Chinese citizens. In 2012, Joe is working for New York magazine,
where he learns that Tank man is still alive and staying in the U.S.
Joe vows to pursue the story of Tank Man and seeks help from Zhang
Lin, who has not recovered from depression since he lost his wife in
the protests. However, Joe is threatened by his boss if he covers the
story. Joe‘s boss opines that covering the story would damage the
reputation of Chinese authorities. Generally, the play addresses the
shifting balance of power between China and America. From 1989 to
2012, China had transformed from a developing country to a
developed country. Meanwhile, despite these developments,
censorship remains the order of the day in China.
Censorship in China is used to control people from finding out the
secrets of the government. Similarly, Joe was censored by his boss
from covering the story of Tank Man to limit people from knowing
the truth. No rights to freedom of speech in China. In Chimerica, Lucy
Kirkwood is trying to show how American media contributes to this
uncalled behavior in China. However, bold journalists like Joe offer a
more in-depth understanding of the scope of this underlying
problem in China.
'Purple Hibiscus' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is the story of a
young Nigerian woman who comes of age amidst economic and
political instabilityPurple Hibiscus was written by Chimamanda Ngozi
Adichie in 2003. This post-colonial novel depicts the colonialist regime in
Nigeria, a time and place of economic and political instability and the
author's home country. The novel uses first-person narration, taking the
perspective of a fifteen-year-old girl named Kambili Achike. This allows
readers to witness the protagonist's internal transformation. When we are
first introduced to the character, we realize the extent to which her psyche
is influenced by her father's rigid philosophy. But as the story progresses,
readers witness Kambili's sense of identity develop and grow.