Never Let Go

Never Let Go by Simmy Kaur

Rose, soft rose,
unmarred and without stint of jewels,
abundant flower, thick,
sparse of leaf,

more precious
than a parched rose
single on a stem—
you are caught in the drift.

Stunted, with small leaf,
you are drowning in the ocean,
you are lifted
on the crisp door
that drives in the wind.

Can the blossoms
drip such sweet fragrance
thicken in a leaf?

Sea Rose by H.D. was already a work of art, entailing what it truly means to go through difficult times but still giving it all to remain strong and standing. While this poem challenged the typical symbol of a rose, I wanted to recreate the rose back to its traditional meaning while personifying it as Rose’s character from Titanic.

Rose Dewitt Bukater belonged to an abundantly rich family, but her heart was even wealthier with love for a man from a lower social class. Like a rose, she was beautiful and “…without stint of jewels” (Line 2), but deep down she always knew she was different. Money never made her happy, and she never fit in with the rest of her crowd. Falling in love and spending time with Jack bloomed her personality in ways she was never able to showcase in front of her family. In fact, her vibrant nature often surfaced when she was away from the rich, simply cherishing every moment with a man who had nothing to his name. This goes to show that money doesn’t buy happiness. A quality viewers occasionally forget about Rose is her independency. While the traditional symbolism for a rose is delicacy, the color red is defined as dominance and being able to hold onto courage. Such qualities heavily come into play when the tragedy of the Titanic ship occurs. Jack and Rose fight their way out of the ship after it crashes into a glacier, finding any which way to survive. I included “You are drowning in the ocean/ you are lifted/ on the crisp door” (Lines 10, 11, 12) in order to tell the story of how Rose demonstrated pain and strength of losing her best friend to freezing waters.

Real life stories like Titanic teach the audience what it means to represent a widespread of emotions when dealing with heartbreaking events. A strong female lead like Rose’s character is exactly what I believe to be like the flower and its glowing red hue: power and resilience. In a conventional viewpoint, a rose’s rich representation literally matches Rose’s wealth in money. Similarly, a rose’s strong tint coincides with her lively character and humor. They say that as long as a rose is attached at the root, the flower will continue to bloom. When a difficult and life changing event occurs, time will pass and it leads to growth. The further we progress in our society, the more we advocate and root for women empowerment, taking in consideration historical events regarding gender equality. Rose is the epitome of what it means to be a woman who doesn’t feel like she belongs in a society that forces her to act per her class and gender, and her ability to conform the social norms and do as she desires, regardless of consequences, is something to be inspired by in 2021.

Simranpreet Kaur

Distinguisged Voices in Parallel Desolation

McKay’s poems, Outcast and The Tired Worker coincide with each other due to their parallel significance. There is a sense of anguish and dejection in the Outcast that is reflected in The Tired Worker. It should be noted that McKay wrote the Outcast in 1922. The speaker in both poems expresses his thoughts towards the discriminatory prejudices found in America. The culture shock that is implied in these poems is the bridge that binds them together, which is where the depression stems from. McKay uses personification and diction to illustrate the somber hues in both poems. 

The Tired Worker depicts the tedious routine of an average worker in America, and there is an aching desire for rest within them. McKay writes, ““soon the night\ Will wrap thee gently in her sable sheet” (5-6). Words “wrap” and “gently” display the benign and tender tones the speaker so eagerly yearns for. The motherly intonation is explicitly stated in the word “her,” which merely exemplifies the context of homesickness. McKay’s diction evokes eloquence that coerces the reader to experience the dreadful sensations the speaker endures. The speaker continues, “The wretched day was theirs, the night is mine;\ Come tender sleep, and fold me to thy breast” (9-10). The speaker is awaiting the calming night only to awaken to another monotonous day. Recall the time period that McKay published these poems, considerably one of the many appalling moments in history. Outcast puts these thoughts and feelings into intimate and personal expressions that is fervently communicated in The Tired Worker. Outcast’s speaker discusses the origins of their displacement in the new environment. McKay states, “For the dim regions whence my fathers came\ My spirit, bondaged by the body, longs” (1-2). The speaker desires the comfort that can only be provided from their homeland, which is evident in The Tired Worker. 

Emily Pu

Emptiness that Cannot be Concieved.

As the war was tearing families and lives apart by the second in the 1940s, the world inside the minds that witnessed these events found a way to be recorded forever. This is the power of poetry, of the haiku; it transcends evil and mortality. It is a tool that allows us to imagine and attempt to feel the memories carried from those times. In this case I use the word attempt, as we will never be able to truly empathize with the horrors of war.

The story of Violet Kazue Matsuda De Cristoforo is especially shock-inducing. The way that war crime after war crime appeared at her door step is unbelievably cruel, incomprehensble, and heartbreaking. But amongst all these feelings and hateful acts, what is there truly? What can be felt from the earth? From humanity? This is a question that she answers through 3-simple lines; a sad way of coming to terms with a world filled with cruelty. “My heart percieves nothing”, a jarring statement that likely resonates with all who were living through these war crimes. Kazue Matsuda gives the heart eyes, we can imagine it has ears to hear, and other senses. This personification is powerful because it turns over the responsibility of perception and feeling to the heart. It feels like a final cry for hope, finally leaning on her beating organ, and still nothing.

“day to day

summer at its peak in highland”.

The emphasis on a ‘high’ is important because it gives the sense of heightened feeling or reality. “Peak” describes an all-time high, and we know we are in or on something referred to as the “highland”. The surroundings seem to call for an equally potent sense of emotion, yet there is nothing seen or felt by our hearts. This paradoxical imagery amplifies the effect of the first line; the image of the beaming sun shining in this great land makes the emptiness of this body and heart feel all the more grim.

This poem is a powerful haiku, with use of amazing imagery, and it feels as though it carries the memories and pain of many during that time. The poets ability to capture such reality in three lines in truly admirable and is a great representation of the power of haiku poetry.

Darah Carrillo Vargas

The Modern Rose

The rose, a symbol of romance, love, sensuality, and fragility, is often associated with the romantic era or light-hearted holidays such as Valentine’s day. When I picture a rose in my head, I think of a bright, colorful, and extravagant flower that you would give to a significant other or find displayed at a flower shop. H. D. and Adrianna Puente, however, take this preconceived image of a rose and drastically morph the meaning of roses into something darker, imperfect, and more human. Although both poets manage to successfully change the symbolism associated with the rose, I feel that H.D. has a more interesting, unique, and thorough symbolic shift of the rose than Puente.

Let’s first look at Adriana Puente’s poem, The Rose and The Poppy. The poem begins immediately with a reference to traditional images associated with the rose: “I am/ not a ravishing ruby red … Not the flower you give to a lover, … Nor am I a symbol of romance”. These three lines in the first stanza are a direct acknowledgement of the traditional symbols of the rose (red, love, romance). The speaker, personifying themselves in the form of the “rose”, is stating that they recognize what a rose symbolizes and telling the reader that they are none of those things at all. Instead, Puente makes it clear that the speaker is the opposite: “I am/ wild in fields of green and blues./ Electric orange-/ like tangerines in a orchard of trees,”. This imagery of the “rose” not being traditionally red, but instead a myriad of colors gives the impression of something more natural, with emphasis to the word “wild” in this stanza. This is essentially saying that the typical romantic rose are domesticated and uniform and not unique. However, the true beauty comes from these wild flowers that are imperfect but free, unlike the rose.

I think the final line of this poem sums it up best, with “Rotting into umber.” Umber, a reddish brown color, seems to come in contrast with the typical vibrant potpourri that one would normally find. Instead, these wild flowers live their lives, wilt, and then fade away, returning to the soil. In a way, it is a commentary on cultural uniformity with the rose as it’s centerpiece. However, I do find that this detachment of the symbols of the rose relies too heavily on the preconceived images associated with the flower, especially in the first stanza. It’s a little on the nose at time, stating that I am everything that a rose isn’t, but overall still very successful in transforming the symbols of a rose.

Let’s put this in contrast with H. D.’s poem, Sea Rose. This poem uses the rose differently than Puente’s poem. Instead of saying that the rose is everything but the traditional symbols a rose represents, H. D. prefers to attach negative adjectives and imagery to the rose, giving the reader a vivid image of a wilted and broken rose: “harsh rose,/ marred and with stint of petals,/ meagre flower, thin,/ sparse of leaf,”. Words like harsh, stint, meagre, thin, and sparse are all being used to describe this flower, quite the juxtaposition from the typical adjectives used to describe roses. These negative adjectives persist throughout the entire poem, with words such as “stunted” and “acrid” as well, really creating vivid imagery of a rose that is anything but what you usually consider a rose. This greatly reflects the time era that this poem was written, given that H. D. wrote this poem in the modernity era, which was a critique of the romantic period before it. This period consisted of the search for meaning in the modern age of the industrial revolution and the individualistic culture that permeated the time. Similar to Puente’s poem, the rose in Sea Rose seems to be a personification of something, in this case the romantic period. During the romantic period, the rose was a symbol of the idealist and flowery life that poets portrayed in that era, where everything was bright, colorful, and perfect.

But this rose isn’t perfect.

This rose is harsh, thin, has sparse leaves, and is full of imperfections. Unlike it’s perfect and ideal counterpart in the romantic age, this rose has seen and lived through the harsh reality of life, yet is more precious because of that realism in the mind of the speaker. This rose is “caught in the drift” of the absurdity and isolation of modernity, wandering through time and looking for meaning, just like poets were at the time. In a way, this rose reflects the shambling of romantic poetry after the industrial revolution, where the idealist world crumbled away and was left searching for meaning like everyone else. Yet this rose is more real than the ideal and perfect rose often symbolized in poetry. It has imperfections and scars and flung left and right across the sands, yet it is more precious because it is more real to the human condition than the ideal rose of the modern era.

The rose in Sea Rose does more than just simply becoming an antithetical foil to the traditional symbols of the rose. It evokes the emotions of pain, of hardness, of the drifting search for meaning, and of what it means to be human. It sheds away all of the idealistic and flowery imagery synonymous with the rose and instead replaces it with the realities of the modern life. Because of this juxtaposition, the rose in Sea Rose becomes far more successful in challenging the traditional symbol of the rose.

Sky Miller

Sea Rose Vs The poppy

Both poems include imagery as well as strong metaphors. The thing is both poems talk about more than just a single rose one talk’s about the poppy with is Adrianna’s poem and the other talks about the Sea Rose. If you were to read the poem “Sea Rose” you wouldn’t think much of it although that’s not what the dictionary says, the dictionary gives you a completely different flower that is unique as the rose and both are similar when it comes to describing woman. The poem “rose and the poppy” talks about not only a rose but also talks about a flower poppy. The poem that is most effective in challenging the traditional symbol of the rose would be the rose and the poppy.

The reason I say this it’s because the poem is full of metaphors but what do you think when you think of a rose? Strong, beautiful, lover and kind although this wouldn’t exactly be the traditional simbol of the rose for me. A rose is a woman and I believe that the poem is telling me exactly this, “scenting rooms with our fragrance” the poem is not talking about the rose scent itself but its talking about woman’s fragrance their own smell because the poem gives us metaphors, comparing the rose to a woman. “Most times I am forgotten” this is another comparison between the rose and woman a rose can be forgotten once it dies, swell as woman can be forgotten from time to time. The poet uses imagery to describe “I am not a revising ruby red” to tell us that the poet is not talking about a rose itself but it’s talking about someone else about a person so in this case personification. The reason why I say that the rose and the poppy has more of a traditional symbol to the rose it’s because a poet will never actually talk about a rose, but instead of a metaphor and I felt like the poem “Sea Rose” Explained more of an actual rose than what a rose can represent.

-Ana Munos

Persian Poetry and Figurative Language

In Hafez’s Ode 44, he uses figurative language to represent in several ways. In the first stanza, he refers to his lover as being “as warm as a dewy rose.” I think this is trying to depict how the lover being scantily clad has made her cold to the touch since dew generally forms in cold conditions. That and that the narrator, hereafter referred to as “Hafez” finds it appealing since he uses the word “warm” which has positive connotations in the context of love and making out rather a more intuitive word like “cold” or “cool.” Hafez also metaphorically refers to Heaven as a “churl,” perhaps talking about promiscuity in the second stanza since a churl is someone who is crass or uncouth. Then, Hafez in the last stanza describes his lover’s hair as “O knotted locks, filled like a flower with scent” using the simile to fully convey the experience to us. Finally, Hafez ends with a personification/synecdoche describing how this lover has derailed a “poor penitent.”

I think Hafez’s love rejects Islamic spirituality because, even though I’m not familiar with Islam, his poem talks a lot about being the irresistability of one’s lusts and desires as well as being inebriated, two things not endorsed by most religions. This is illustrated in the “churl” metaphor and the final “how have you ravished…” personification/synecdoche. The “warm as a dewy rose” and “filled like a flower with scent” similes also describe and romanticize the sensual aspects of love. Finally, the last stanza is all about Hafez being unable to keep his promise of penitance, the keeping of which is important in most religions.

Evan He

The Delicacy of Love

Love is a delicate subject, people have different ways of showing love. One of the ways where people where successful in portraying love is through literature. Poets have expressed their feeling towards their loved ones through the use of the poem’s figurative language. To exemplify this, Hafez expresses the rush of love he feels towards a girl through the use of figurative language in his poems “Ode 487 ,” and “Ode 44.”  

The use of figurative language in both poems helps in delivering Hafez’s message to the reader. Hafez focuses on the use of imagery in both poems to help deliver his point to the reader. This can be seen through line 14 in the poem “Ode 487.” Where the poet employs the use of a very detailed description of her eyes and actions. Similarly, imagery is also seen in line 8 through the poem “Ode 44,” as the Hafez is describing the physical appearance of the girl. On the other hand, a personification is seen in the first line in the poem “Ode 487,” Hafez gives a wine glass human traits as it is able to sing in his head, showing the amount of pain he is in as he is not able to win over the love of his life. On the other hand, Hafez uses a simile in his poem “Ode 44”  which is found in the sixth line “warm as a dewy rose,” emphasizing on the beauty of his lover. As a student that grew up in the middle east, Islam was the most popular religion in Palestine. Both of these two poems contradict the two ideas of being able to be sexual (have sex) with a girl or have the ability to drink. Both of these poem contradict two of the basic ideas of Islam, thus, rejecting the Islamic spirituality.

Is It Really Love?

The poem “Ode 44” by Hafez describes a unique situation in which love is the main focus. In this work of art Hafez uses metaphors, similes, and personification in order to convey the feeling of falling in love. The author describes a woman as somewhat of a temptress by using words such as “half naked” and “wine-red lips”, which represents the visual aspects of what Hafez believes love is like. This is why this poem describes this type of infatuation as a woman pouring wine, since this visualization happens to be one of temptation and loss of inhibition. 

Hafez uses figurative language in a very interesting way in order to describe what love is like between two people. The author uses a simile in the line “warm as a dewy rose” in order to represent the woman in which this poem embodies. This simile is used to describe the comfort of intimacy and how love creates a warm sensation within each person who experiences it. Hafez also uses personification in the line “narcissus-eyes all shining for the fray”, which is used to describe the visual change in a person’s eyes when they become infatuated with another person. The phrase “narcissus-eyes” is also very unique since it shows that the author sees love as a selfish feeling instead of the free emotion most people relate it to. This idea that love can be a singular temporary feeling that does not necessarily have to be shared with another person. When it comes to Islamic spirituality this poem seems to go against the traditional views of Islam since it focuses on the temptation of love instead of the positive views that most people associate with that emotion.

Jamey Cain

Weary Body/Mind

Randy Hernandez

The poems “The Tired Worker” and “Outcast” by McKay Claude  are two poems reflecting on the common man in America. I believe the two poems describes the inner emotions and mental state of the lower class or working class in American society. This was a time where people of color worked very laborious and tedious job for next to nothing wages. The two poems share this common characteristics as its main focus throughout both poems share the real life experiences of those who are oppressed by the white man such as colored people and lower class individuals. This would lead me to conclude this idea of the poem “Outcast” represents the poem “The tired Worker” in the aspect of the speakers feeling hopelessness and despair.

Specifically, when both the speakers share the common idea of feeling isolated in the world they work for, how they feel strapped down to the working class and feel no freedom. In the poem “Outcast” the speaker states “I would go back to darkness and peace/ But the great western world holds me to fee” (line5-6). In this quote shows this aspect of the speaker feeling trapped in this country he lives in. The speaker feels the need to go back to his home land to feel content in his current life. The use of personifying the western world and describing it as the “great western world” has significance, the speaker acknowledges the benefits this world brings him. The world makes the speaker feel trapped which is emphasised by personifying the western world as to keep him contained, the speaker is able to show his sense of gratefulness. This world does have many downfalls but it’s still worth exploring the opportunities it can provide for the working class at times. 

Similarly, this is noted in the poem “The tried Worker” as the speaker shows his frustration of not feeling able to rest his body. The speaker can’t wait to put his body under the sheets to sleep to rest the physical body and mental mind. The poem also shows how the speaker dreads once he is awakened as the speaker says “O dawn! O dreaded dawn!”(line 12). The Speaker is showing the lack of rest and peace he feels every morning as he awakes for the day ahead. The speaker expresses his emotions through describing his body to the reader as the speaker says “ Be patient, weary body” (line 5) or says “To rest thy tired hands and aching feet” (line 8). These two examples are of the speaker describing his worn out body from the labor done in the day. The speaker goes to sleep every night with his body feeling weary and his feet and hands feeling worn out. The reader is given a deeper understanding of how the speaker feels every day after a hard day of work. One can picture a person’s body that is shown to be a hard working person but can see the physical and mental effects of it. There is some sense of peace being able to sleep at night. The speaker does acknowledge how they are given not enough rest but are able to receive some type of rest at night as their body is able to recover to some degree. 

Thus, both poems show this idea of being trapped in a world the speaker can’t escape. It’s an endless loop having to work and feeling these emotions of not having any hope and feeling desperate at times. When reading “The Tired Worker” the reader sees how the poem “Outcast” is a manifestation of it of what the speaker is expressing to the reader. This feeling of not seeing a future where they live has trapped them because of the free and empowered white man who controls their lives. 

Like A Mirror Image

By Randy Hernandez

The sonnet “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” (Sonnet 130) by William Shakespeare’s main focus in the sonnet is on the mysteries women Shakesphere has shown in many of his works. In this poem Skakcesphere doesn’t praise the woman he shows the reader how the women beauty is nothing special. In other words, her appearance is unattractive as the speaker shows the women can’t be compared to the beauty of nature or of a goddess. This is shown in the title and in the first line as it states “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” the woman’s eyes aren’t comparable to sun as to show the idea of the woman’s eyes being dull which doesn’t catch a person’s attention. The speaker is being brutally honest with his comparison as to enforce this idea of the woman being an ordinary human being. She holds no physical appearance that one might find impressive or attractive too. The speaker also shows how unbothered he is to speaker ill of this woman as he states “Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks”. The speaker shows no sense of holding back from describing the woman in is such a negative aspect. The meaning of the poem is enhanced by Catherine Tate’s classroom performance as it implies the harsh, rude, parody, and dull aspects of the poem but leaves a bittersweet taste to the reader.

When reading the sonnet and seeing the video you can see how they both have a relationship with one another. Tate’s plays the role of a student named Lauren Cooper who is a personified version of this sonnet. The students actions display the same interpretation one gets when reading Shakespeare’s sonnet. This expression of both being a parody is shown as love is turned upside down in the sonnet as the speaker describes the women in a harsh way but at the end says she is as significant as any other women. Then Tate’s performance in the video is also a parody as she mocks, ridiculous and disrespects the english teacher which is played by David Tennant. When in most cases one holds their teacher to level of respect. Then one notices how Shakespeare’s sonnet and Tate’s performance have this impression of both to be rude, harsh, and very dull. This is shown as Tate’s role of the school student who is taken to be a girl who is only trouble, rude, vulgar and just not intelligent. This results in the teacher to respond to the student in a very unprofessional manner as he insults Lauren Cooper. Then the volta appears in the video as the student recites the poem “My Mistress’s Eyes are nothing like the sun” by Shakespeare as to show she is a very sharp girl who is capable of having inner beauty. This then helps enhance the sonnet as it also has the same effect as the women is shown to hold no beauty but after we reader the volta in the sonnet we see the beauty she holds. Then it is also shown in the couplet of the sonnet as it is presenting this ending of the women holding the same value as an other women even if she is not as appealing as other women. The performance by Tate is like a mirror image of  Shakespeare’s sonnet as it enhances the sonnet vulgar context but has an over all bittersweet ending as the two end with both women showing value.