Pat Mora---Synthesis Response

I have greatly enjoyed reading some of Pat Mora's work. After having been exposed to many of her poems, I have picked up on many of her common thematic and stylistic elements. Obviously, Mora has a passion for writing about the struggles, triumphs, and general culture of Mexican-Americans, as she is a Mexican-American herself. Frequently, she brings up the struggles faced by the Mexican parents of children being raised in the U.S.. At times, such parental characters in her poems are afraid to bring the Mexican culture into their children's lives, for they want their children to be "true Americans" and to adapt fully to their surrounding Americanized environment. America is glorified by the speakers of these poems, but almost over-glorified to give the reader a sense of worry as to what will happen to the Mexican culture these families came from. Mora is never the direct voice of reason in her poems, but she instills a sense of one by often representing extremes. In other cases, these Mexican-born parents struggle with the loss of their culture in a world that their children are so well adapted to, having been born in America.

In terms of poetic devices, I noted often that Mora's poems are heavily enjambed. This use of enjambment very often emphasizes the speaker's strong emotions of passion or solemness or joy or a sense of being overwhelmed, depending on the overall tone of the poem. Her use of fairly simplistic diction allows for easy interpretation, pointing back to the fact that Mora writes poems and stories for varying age levels. She will also often bring in metaphors and similes that connect the nature of her native southwest to the emotions and feelings of her speaker, allowing for a rich reading experience.

It has been a pleasure to familiarize myself with some of Pat Mora's fantastic poems. Her points of view have provided me with a great respect for Mexican-American culture.

Mary Oliver---Influential Poet

On her website, Pat Mora lists a number of poets whose published guidelines she often turns to when she writes poetry. One is Mary Oliver, whose book, A Poetry Handbook: A Prose Guide To Understanding and Writing Poetry, Mora notes as a resource she will access as a stylistic reference. In this book, Oliver discusses the proper use of poetic devices found in poetry and also focuses on the proper placement of "breaks" as well as line length. 

Mary Oliver was born in 1935 in Maple Heights, OH. She attended both Ohio State University and Vassar College. She currently lives in Provincetown, MA. She has written numerous collections of poetry and has won several awards such as the National Book Award, the Christopher Award, the L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and others.

In terms of common themes found in Oliver's poetry, she often brings up the subject of the body, the soul, and their connection to nature, as in one of her most famous poems, “Wild Geese.”

“Wild Geese”

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
© Mary Oliver

In this poem, Oliver subtly denounces the secular belief that humans must punish themselves in order to achieve everlasting happiness and peace (“on your knees/for a hundred miles through the desert” is a religious reference to the forty days Jesus spent in the desert.). She insists that humans need not make themselves suffer so much. She connects the free will and fluidity of nature and particularly, wild geese, with what human beings so often attempt to resist. With this poem, she presents the idea that humans would be much happier if they were more in touch with their emotions and desires and gave into them as the rest of nature does, rather than pushing them away.

Another of Mary Oliver’s poem’s with a similar message is “The Swan”:

“The Swan”
Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?
© Mary Oliver

In this poem, Oliver presents the reader with a series of questions. These questions emphasize what Oliver wants us to take out of the poem; the simplistic beauty of the swan simply being without anything else acting upon it. The last three lines of the poem are vital to the poem’s message, in which Oliver explains that she wants the reader to realize that this peacefulness and ability to connect with one’s environment so simply that the swan represents is what beauty is truly about. Everything else is extraneous.

When I read these poems, it really struck me how similar Mary Oliver’s style is to Pat Mora’s. Both write heavily enjambed poetry so as to emphasize a feeling of intense emotion about the subject. Mora, like Oliver, also uses nature as a metaphor in her poems, though from what I have read, not as often as Oliver does. Their overall use of diction is similar in that the way in which they express themselves sounds as if they are speaking to a friend or another individual. In other words, their poetry is not meant to require an immense amount of analytical effort in order to even determine what they are trying to say. Additionally, the length of each line of poetry from one author mimics the other’s typical style.

Pat Mora Video Interview

Though this video focuses more on Mora's work with children's books, what she says about her cultural background really embodies why she chooses to write so often about cultural differences and similarities.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0bST3Jbea0&feature=related

Senora X No More

Señora X No More

Straight as a nun I sit.
My fingers foolish before paper and pen
hide in my palms. I hear the slow, accented echo
        How are yu? I ahm fine. How are yu?
of the other women who clutch notebooks
and blush at their stiff lips resisting
sounds that float gracefully as
bubbles from their children's mouths.
My teacher bends over me, gently squeezes
my shoulders, the squeeze I give my sons,
hands louder than words.
She slides her arms around me:
a warm shawl, lifts my left arm
onto the cold, lined paper.
"Señora, don't let it slip away," she says
and opens the ugly, soap-wrinkled fingers
of my right hand with a pen like I pry open
the lips of a stubborn grandchild.
My hand cramps around the thin hardness.
"Let it breathe," says this woman who knows
my hand and tongue knot, but she guides
and I dig the tip of my pen into that white.
I carve my crooked name, and again at night
until my hand and arm are sore,
I carve my crooked name,
my name.

©Pat Mora

Analysis: There are a lot of poetic and literary devices used in this poem, including similes ("straight as a nun", "gracefully as bubbles from their children's mouths"), personification (letting the hand "breathe"), enjambment, and a pun ("knot"). The speaker of this poem seems to be constantly comparing herself to those younger than her, as she feels almost ashamed to be taught English in a way that she would handle a child. She mentions her sons and grandchild, indicating that she is of an older age at the time of her education. The women in the room seem similarly ashamed as they "blush at their stiff lips resisting/sounds that float gracefully as/bubbles from their children's mouths," for they cannot speak English while their children, having grown up with the language, speak it with ease. Additionally, the instructor is said to "know [the speaker's] hand and tongue knot," meaning both that the teacher understands her struggles and that the teacher is also unfamiliar with the speaker's native Spanish background, which is not so easy for the speaker to simply let go of as the teacher instructs. Describing her name as "crooked" indicates a sense of insecurity and imperfection about her abilities.

Desert Women

Desert Women

Desert women know
about survival.
Fierce heat and cold
have burned and thickened
our skin. Like cactus
we've learned to hoard,
to sprout deep roots,
to seem asleep, yet wake
at the scent of softness
in the air, to hide
pain and loss by silence,
no branches wail
or whisper our sad songs
safe behind our thorns.

Don't be deceived.
When we bloom, we stun.

©Pat Mora

Analysis: This poem is more nature-oriented. In it, Mora compares the strength and willpower of women who live in the desert with the qualities of a cactus. The cactus in the poem is personified as having "learned to hoard,/to sprout deep roots,/to seem asleep, yet wake at the scent of softness in the air." Cacti hoard water to stay alive, and when conditions are right, flowers bloom amongst their sharp spikes. Similarly, Mora describes women of the desert as being tough with a goal of survival. Having been tested by the challenges of the desert, they know and understand much. They may seem intimidating, just as the spikes of a cactus are, but when they "bloom" and reveal their stoicism and natural beauty, they "stun."

Legal Alien

Legal Alien

Bi-lingual, Bi-cultural,
able to slip from “How’s life?”
to “Me’stan volviendo loca,”
able to sit in a paneled office
drafting memos in smooth English,
able to order in fluent Spanish
at a Mexican restaurant,
American but hyphenated,
viewed by Anglos as perhaps exotic,
perhaps inferior, definitely different,
viewed by Mexicans as alien,
(their eyes say, “You may speak
Spanish but you’re not like me”)
an American to Mexicans
a Mexican to Americans
a handy token
sliding back and forth
between the fringes of both worlds
by smiling
by masking the discomfort
of being pre-judged
Bi-laterally.


Analysis: In this poem, Mora expresses her feelings about being a Mexican-American woman by presenting both the upsides and the downsides. She enjoys and is proud of the fact that she can "slip" between "smooth English" and "fluent Spanish" with ease, interacting in the Anglo world of a "paneled office" and the contrasting world of a Mexican restaurant. However, she also expresses that she is viewed as "different" by the Anglos and as a betrayer by Mexicans. She reveals that as a Mexican-American, she sometimes feels as though is judged by both cultures of the namesake for separate reasons. Again, heavy enjambment in this poem (there is not a period until after the last word of the poem) by the author successfully portrays the feeling of so many different labels and qualities and emotions thrust upon the Mexican-American speaker because of who she is.

Immigrants

Immigrants

wrap their babies in the American flag,
feed them mashed hot dogs and apple pie,
name them Bill and Daisy,
buy them blonde dolls that blink blue
eyes or a football and tiny cleats
before the baby can even walk,
speak to them in thick English,
hallo, babee, hallo,
whisper in Spanish or Polish
when the babies sleep, whisper
in a dark parent bed, that dark
parent fear, “Will they like
our boy, our girl, our fine american
boy, our fine american girl?”

Analysis: This poem's focus is on the American dream that immigrants coming to America have for their children. They want their children to grow up entirely American as evidenced by the lines, "wrap their babies in the American flag/feed them mashed hot dogs and apple pie." The food reference is interesting in that foods like hot dogs and apple pie are always identified with America. The speaker goes on to list other American-associated items and qualities that are idolized in the USA, such as being blonde with blue eyes, and being a football star. There is a sense of a loss of the culture that the parents originally came from, as if the parents are ashamed or trying to train the ancestral background out of the child all together. The fact that they speak to children in "thick English" and "whisper in Spanish or Polish" indicates once again that the immigrant parents do not wish for their child to grow up knowing where he or she came from. The enjambment in this list of endless Americanization techniques relays a sense of desperation; an indication that parents never stop trying to make their children fit into an American society and live like an American. Also notable is the line "hallo, babee, hallo," which gives the English words an onomonopia-like feel, meant to emphasize the desire for the children to speak the language of America.

La Migra

La Migra

  I

Let's play La Migra
I'll be the Border Patrol.
You be the Mexican maid.
I get the badge and sunglasses.
You can hide and run,
but you can't get away
because I have a jeep.
I can take you wherever
I want, but don't ask
questions because
I don't speak Spanish.
I can touch you wherever
I want but don't complain
too much because I've got
boots and kick—if I have to,
and I have handcuffs.
Oh, and a gun.
Get ready, get set, run.

     II

Let's play La Migra
You be the Border Patrol.
I'll be the Mexican woman.
Your jeep has a flat,
and you have been spotted
by the sun.
All you have is heavy: hat
glasses, badge, shoes, gun.
I know this desert,
where to rest,
where to drink.
Oh, I am not alone.
You hear us singing
and laughing with the wind,
Agua dulce brota aquí
aquí, aquí, but since youcan't speak Spanish.
you do not understand
Get ready.

Analysis: This poem cleverly shows the two paraxox-like sides to "la migra," which is Spanish for "the migration," or crossing of the Mexican border into America. There is clear parallelism between the poems with very similar opening and closing statements as well as diction within the poem itself. This poem is very interesting in that it reveals such confidence and determination from both points of view in the border control conflict. The border patrol man is very cocky about the fact that he has a jeep, so the woman can't run away from him. He also feels entitled to do whatever he wants to her, including rape, because he speaks English and she speaks Spanish and he has a gun and a badge. The woman, ironically, makes fun of the valuable qualities the border patrol man is so proud of, including the clear visibility of the jeep and that his badge and gun and uniform in general are hot and heavy under the sun. She feels as though she has the advantage and is somewhat cocky about the fact that she speaks Spanish and he does not, therefore she will understand when a fellow Mexican finds water in the harsh desert. The parallelism and irony provide excellent contrasts for the man and the woman, each of whom makes fun of what the other sees to be his/her advantage at the border. Both are extremely confident in their abilities and resources at hand, making the reader feel as though there is no clear-cut "winner" in "la migra."

Elena

Elena


My Spanish isn't good enough 
I remember how I'd smile 
Listening my little ones 
Understanding every word they'd say, 
Their jokes, their songs, their plots 
Vamos a pedirle dulces a mama. Vamos. 
But that was in Mexico. 
Now my children go to American High Schools. 
They speak English. At night they sit around the 
Kitchen table, laugh with one another. 
I stand at the stove and feel dumb, alone. 
I bought a book to learn English. 
My husband frowned, drank more beer. 
My oldest said, 'Mama, he doesn't want you to 
Be smarter than he is' I'm forty, 
Embarrassed at mispronouncing words, 
Embarrassed at the laughter of my children, 
The grocery, the mailman. Sometimes I take 
my English book and lock myself in the bathroom, 
say the thick words softly, for if I stop trying, I will be deaf 
when my children need my help.


Analysis: This poem displays a Mexican mother's sense of distress as she raises her children in the English-speaking America of which she knows very little. Overall, the speaker seems to feel helplessly lost in this world so new to her yet that her children understand without struggle. As a mother, she is extremely distressed by this, as she is worried she "will be deaf when [her] children need [her] help" and will not be able to understand. There is a dissociation between generational and cultural differences of the Mexican-born parents and the American-raised children. The mother, whose husband disapproves of her desire to adapt to the foreignness around them, struggles with what she used to know and what surrounds her now. She may be secretly envious of her children who seem so competent in this world that she can barely function in. She says she is "embarrassed at the laughter of [her] children," because she cannot even understand well enough to laugh along.
Enjambment is very interesting in this poem. It seems as though the lines in which the speaker describes her stress over not knowing English well enough to communicate properly to her children are those that are enjambed, providing a sense that the speaker is overwhelmed with her incompetence. Lines that are not enjambed, however, seem to be very definitive statements about her feelings toward her conundrum; those that she truly understands. For example, the sixth line of the poem, written in Spanish, is not enjambed, as the speaker understands fully the situation at hand.

Weird

This poem is from Pat Mora's collection of poetry for teens entitled Dizzy in Your Eyes: Poems About Love.


Weird


I start to type an e-mail, but
the letters on the screen don't match
the letters I type. I try again,
stare at the screen,
feel I'm in some weird movie
and the machine is possessed,
has learned to read
my mind
and enjoys watching my confusion,
knows I can't tell anyone:
    my computer and I
have a secret.
    They'll think I'm crazy.

No matter what I do,
the keys type your name.


Analysis: This poem is very interesting for me to read, knowing that Mora wrote it with teens in mind. In this poem, the speaker comes to a realization that he or she is in love with another person when an email the speaker is typing unwillingly continues to bear the lover's name. I find it very witty and clever of Mora to have the email be the realization piece for the teenage speaker. Subconsciously, though the speaker is presently involved in writing the email, he or she cannot stop thinking about this person whose name keeps being typed over and over again. It is as if the speaker has no power over what he or she is writing, because love has taken over the mind. The heavy enjambement of this poem applies the feeling of confusion about love that the speaker is experiencing. The only line that is not enjambed is "They'll think I'm crazy," which is very telling in terms of the speaker's self-consciousness and unwillingness to reveal his or her true feelings. As a teenager, the emotion of love is new, and the speaker does not know how to properly cope with such strong feelings ("I can't tell anyone").

Fences

Fences 

Mouths full of laughter,   

the turistas come to the tall hotel   

with suitcases full of dollars.   

Every morning my brother makes   

the cool beach new for them.   

With a wooden board he smooths   

away all footprints.   

I peek through the cactus fence   

and watch the women rub oil   

sweeter than honey into their arms and legs   

while their children jump waves   

or sip drinks from long straws,   

coconut white, mango yellow.   

Once my little sister   

ran barefoot across the hot sand   

for a taste.   

My mother roared like the ocean,   

“No. No. It’s their beach.   

It’s their beach.”   

Analysis: In this poem, Mora emphasizes the luxuries of rich tourists who come to her area and the social rules (the "fences") that inhibit a Spanish girl like her from enjoying herself in the same way. Differences are immediately set into place when the speaker describes how her brother used to smoots away the footprints on the beach so as to make the beach "new for [the tourists]." I think it's very interesting that she uses the Spanish word, turistas, to describe the tourists. In doing so, she is able to express the drastic feelings of being different from these people. The rich imagery used to describe the tourists' pleasures ("oil sweeter than honey," "sip drinks from long straws,/coconut white,/mango yellow") also emphasizes how luxurious  such lifestyles are. Because the speaker describes the experience as taking place during childhood, a sense of innocence implies that the speaker and her siblings do not fully understand the social contrasts in front of them. When the speaker's sister tries to run on the beach, the speaker's mother tells the child that she can't because "it's their [the tourists'] beach," revealing the social differences the speaker is now able to fully comprehend in adulthood.

Pat Mora - a Biography

Pat Mora was born in 1942 in El Paso, Texas and currently resides in New Mexico. She is the author of many books and poems for adults, teens, and children. As a Mexican-American, her works primarily focus on Mexican-American cultural experiences, identities, and values. In addition, she is also involved in many local Mexican cultural programs at  University of Texas at El Paso, where she received her multiple English Degrees (undergraduate and graduate). She also attended Texas Western College.
She has won numerous awards and fellowships and received several academic honors for her collections of writing, all of which can be found on her website using this link: http://www.patmora.com/awards.htm
Influential to Pat's writings are very often the environment and natural surroundings of the southwest. In doing so, she "chooses to emphasize the harmony rather than the disharmony between the two countries and between Hispanic and Anglo cultures within the United States" (http://eolit.hrw.com/hlla/authorbios/index2.jsp?author=9patmora).
Pat Mora is also well known for her continual support and involvement with  "El día de los ninos/El día de los libros," celebrated nationally every April 30th. This celebratory day invites children and their families to explore and appreciate multicultural backgrounds.
Sources:
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/290
http://eolit.hrw.com/hlla/authorbios/index2.jsp?author=9patmora

Shape Poem #2

 "The Mouse's Tale" by Lewis Carroll (an excerpt from Alice in Wonderland)

"Mine is a long and a sad tale!" said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing.

"It is a long tail, certainly," said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail; "but why do you call it sad?" And she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so that her idea of the tale was something like this:—

 Fury said to a mouse,
                 That he met in the
                        house, 'Let us
                           both go to law:
                            I will prosecute
                          you.-- Come, I'll
                         take no denial;
                       We must have
                     a trial: For
                   really this
                 morning I've
               nothing to do.'
                   Said the mouse
                         to the cur,
                           'Such a trial,
                              dear Sir, With
                                  no jury or
                                judge, would
                               be wasting
                           our breath.'
                        'I'll be
                   judge, I'll
                 be jury,'
               Said cunning
             old Fury:
                'I'll try
                  the whole
                    cause, and
                        condemn
                            you
                              to
                               death.'

"You are not attending!" said the Mouse to Alice, severely. "What are you thinking of?"

"I beg your pardon," said Alice very humbly, "you had got to the fifth bend, I think?"

"I had not!" cried the Mouse sharply and very angrily.

"A knot!" said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking anxiously about her. "Oh, let me help to undo it!"

"I shall do nothing of the sort, said the Mouse, getting up and walking away. "You insult me by talking such nonsense!"

This poem, which is an excerpt from Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, bases its humor nearly entirely on the confusion of trope that exists around the poem itself. Alice's confusion that the "tale" the mouse speaks of is actually his literal "tail" is the basis of the irony in this poem. As the mouse tells Alice his sad tale, she believes he is discussing his tail and observes it as he tells her his story. This explains the shape of the noted tale, which is meant to look like a mouse tail. The "Fury" of which the mouse speaks may be the forces that always seem to be acting against him,  as mice are so small. No matter what he does, it seems as though there are always forces larger and swifter than he who do not listen to his side of the story. Alice again confuses "not" with "knot," and believes that the mouse needs assistance with his knotted tail when he actually is criticizing her for not paying close enough attention to his sorrows.

Shape Poem #1

"Easter Wings" by George Herbert

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
   Though foolishly he lost the same,
      Decaying more and more,
        Till he became
           Most poore:
           With  thee
        Oh let me rise
   As larks, harmoniously,
  And sing this day  thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

My  tender  age  in  sorrow   did   beginne:
   And still with sicknesses and shame
      Thou  didst  so  punish  sinne,
         That  I  became
           Most thinne.
           With  thee
        Let me combine
      And feel this day thy victorie:
   For,  if  I  imp  my  wing  on  thine
Affliction shall  advance the  flight in  me.

Sestina Poem #2

"Sestina" by Elizabeth Bishop
September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
reading the jokes from the almanac,
laughing and talking to hide her tears.

She thinks that her equinoctial tears
and the rain that beats on the roof of the house
were both foretold by the almanac,
but only known to a grandmother.
The iron kettle sings on the stove.
She cuts some bread and says to the child,

It's time for tea now; but the child
is watching the teakettle's small hard tears
dance like mad on the hot black stove,
the way the rain must dance on the house.
Tidying up, the old grandmother
hangs up the clever almanac

on its string. Birdlike, the almanac
hovers half open above the child,
hovers above the old grandmother
and her teacup full of dark brown tears.
She shivers and says she thinks the house
feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.

It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.
I know what I know, says the almanac.
With crayons the child draws a rigid house
and a winding pathway. Then the child
puts in a man with buttons like tears
and shows it proudly to the grandmother.

But secretly, while the grandmother
busies herself about the stove,
the little moons fall down like tears
from between the pages of the almanac
into the flower bed the child
has carefully placed in the front of the house.

Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
and the child draws another inscrutable house.

Sestina Poem #1- COMMENT!

"To The Indifferent Women" by Charlotte Anna Perkins Gilman (comment on this one!)

You who are happy in a thousand homes,

Or overworked therein, to a dumb peace;

Whose souls are wholly centered in the life

Of that small group you personally love;

Who told you that you need not know or care

About the sin and sorrow of the world?

Do you believe the sorrow of the world

Does not concern you in your little homes? —

That you are licensed to avoid the care

And toil for human progress, human peace,

And the enlargement of our power of love

Until it covers every field of life?

The one first duty of all human life

Is to promote the progress of the world

In righteousness, in wisdom, truth and love;

And you ignore it, hidden in your homes,

Content to keep them in uncertain peace,

Content to leave all else without your care.

Yet you are mothers! And a mother's care

Is the first step toward friendly human life.

Life where all nations in untroubled peace

Unite to raise the standard of the world

And make the happiness we seek in homes

Spread everywhere in strong and fruitful love.

You are content to keep that mighty love

In its first steps forever; the crude care

Of animals for mate and young and homes,

Instead of pouring it abroad in life,

Its mighty current feeding all the world

Till every human child can grow in peace.

You cannot keep your small domestic peace

Your little pool of undeveloped love,

While the neglected, starved, unmothered world

Struggles and fights for lack of mother's care,

And its tempestuous, bitter, broken life

Beats in upon you in your selfish homes.

We all may have our homes in joy and peace

When woman's life, in its rich power of love

Is joined with man's to care for all the world.

 

ANALYSIS: Though this poem was written by a woman who lived in the late 1800s and early 1900s, its message can still be considered significant today. Gilman, who has been considered one of the United State's earliest feminists, clearly has an emotional connection to the poem's subject, being a woman growing up in a society that generally supressed female initiatives. In this sestina, she criticizes women for passively agreeing to accept the label presented to them as women and to ignore all the problems of the world that women could very well be involved in solving. Her emphasis of what it means to be a mother I thought to be very interesting, as she is able to take away values that make a woman a mother and apply them to the world and its needs. The world needs "a mother's care," thus a woman's attention may be even more valuable than the care that men have to offer it.

As a sestina is highly organized, authors who write sestinas must carefully choose the words that end the lines of their poems, as these words will be repeated in each stanza. I find it interesting that Gilman chose the words "home," "peace," "life," "love," "care," and "world." She uses these words (that act as a sort of anaphora themselves) to emphasize a woman's ability to shape a world in need of peace with the life, love, and care she obtains from maintaining a home.

I also found it interesting that the some of the cacaphonic words I highlighted appear at then end of the poem where she tries to make herself sound the most aggressive. These harsh-sounding words are easily associated with the criticism she displays.

Finally, much of this sestina is highly enjambed. Because of these continuing sentences that sometimes last for an entire stanza, the reader gets the impression that she has a great deal to say about the subject, that she means what she says, and that she is firm in standing beside her beliefs.

SHAPE

Shape poems (also called concrete poems) are written or typed out out to form a visual shape significant to the poem's meaning or message. A shape poem can also emphasize certain rhyming patterns.

SESTINAS

A sestina is a six-stanza poem with each stanza containing six lines. There is also a tarcet at the end of the poem; a smaller, three-line stanza. These poems are highly structured and organized, as each ending word of each of the six lines in the first stanza reappear in the following order as the ending words of following stanzas:
Stanza 1: 123456
Stanza 2: 615343
Stanza 3: 364125
Stanza 4: 532614
Stanza 5: 451362
Stanza 6: 246531

Literary Devices

HIGHLIGHTED LITERARY DEVICES ARE THOSE DISCUSSED IN ANALYSES!
caesura- a pause in a line of poetry, usually indicated by "//"
enjambment- the breaking/separation of clauses or sentences by the creation of new lines. In other words, a single sentence of poetry that takes up multiple lines.
litotes- understatements affirmed by stating the opposite
conceit- the comparison (via metaphor or simile) of two drastically unlike things
apostrophe- addressing an object as if alive or present
euphony- a collection of sounds and syllables that flow well together
cacophony- a collection of harsh, clashing sounds. Usually a bad combination of bad consonants (such as the word "Jabberwocky," the title of a poem by Lewis Carroll)
scansion- symbols that identify a long or short syllable
figurative language- a broad term describing literary comparisons (metaphor, simile, imagery, alliteration, personification, etc.)
metonymy- a type of TROPE (see below), that includes correspondence.
trope- a word or phrase that is replaced by another word or phrase that yields similar understanding.
anaphora- a repetition of a word or phrase to emphasize a point
euphemism- replacing a potentially offensive word or phrase with a less offensive one
elision- the deletion of a syllable or letter in a word when speaking to make the sound of the word flow better. More EUPHONY
envoi- a stanza concluding a poem that directly adresses the person/object that is the subject of the poem.
allusion- a reference to an event, person, place, etc. in a poem to which the reader is expected to be familiar.