Poem analysis

Poems: Lesson’s Learned 

If you could peek into the soul of someone to have a better life, would you do it? Will it be moral? With poems, we do not have to worry about that intrusion, as we are invited by the poets to learn about their experiences, tribulations and emotions in an intimate way. The poems by Smith’s “Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah.”, Ossip’s “Go” and Dunbar’s “We Wear the Mask” below are full of insightful information, struggles, memories, joy and perseverance that we can learn only from poetry.

Imagine being new parents fighting over the name of a baby. A name that will shield the child from misfortune and give them an edge in life. How sweet would that be! But wait, the parents are not ordinary in their vision of how this child would present, and as crazy as it sounds, that’s how Patricia Smith almost ended up been called “Jimi Savannah” (1-40). This poem is full of stanzas that are vibrant, piquant in descriptions of the mother’s and father’s expectations of what the name would bring to the future life of the child. The mother,

She wanted a child of pressed head and knocking knees,

a…and peppermint-in-the-sour-pickle kinda child,

 stiff-laced and unshakably fixed on salvation (Smith 8-11).

 The father,

insisted, as much as he could insist with her, on the name Jimi Savannah,

seeking to bless me with the blues-bathed moniker of a ball breaker,

the name of a grown gal in a snug red sheath and unlaced All-Stars (Smith 22-24).

 I love the use of the words as they are raw and provide a full sensory vision of the southern parents. And, the grit that the mother showed in telling her husband, “That’s it, you done lost your goddamned mind” (Smith 36-37): the mother was not going to let the father name Patricia.

The parents were definitely characters, but you can see through the lines them expressing their love in unique ways for their daughter which Smith absorbed in her writing style. I can relate to these parents picking the name of their first child. My husband and I debated for months about the name of our first son and it was not an easy task. We did not consider the meaning of the name; we just wanted a nice strong name. And, as our son grew older, he let us have it saying “I hate my name-why would you pick such a dumb name?” I responded by saying “because you did not come with an instructions manual to know what was right”. A lesson Ilearned.

Ossip’s “Go” is a story of the poet watching a baby bird being born outside a cafe in nature and breaking out of the egg shell, a bird of fire, fragile and squawking. The poet describes the baby bird as “it is yellow Saturn wobbling in its orbit.”— “It is danger, squawking” (Ossip 2-4). I will assume Ossip is watching the birth of the bird through a window by her description here:” It is a cube, it is red, it is mountainous,” (1) and sharing the space with strangers in a café (5-6). The poet goes on to describe some of the people in the café; “it is the man with the black T-shirt”— “and it is the blind man with and his painful trembling” (Ossip 7-9). The poet describes the bird being in trouble in fifth stanza and people coming to his aid on the ground: “It’s the abandoned sports bra, in the dirt besides howling you” (Ossip17-20). She paints a vivid description surrounding this poor bird such as wind chimes in a thin tree, a cat waking up from the crying and people giving advice: “It is their heartfelt advice” (Ossip 21-24, 26). Blames the hotel, “It is careless error and the hotel pool blue with chemistry.”— “It’s an explosion it is every explosion everywhere.” (29, 36). The poet, in her last stanza, describes the struggle of the bird talking and trying to free himself from where he is stuck; relating that the struggle is real and continuous until the bird finally frees himself and flies away: “It is serious, it is irreversible, it is going, going.”— “It is flying now laughing strong enough to know anything” (Ossip 44-45).

The analogy in this poem is that struggles can make one stronger just by experience. I can definitely testify to this statement being true. There have been times in my life that I thought I could not go on because the situation was difficult or hard to deal with, but eventually I made it through with perseverance. Just like the saying “what does not kill you, makes you stronger” (Nietzsche’s “Twilight of the Idols”).

There are times that hiding feelings or anguish is easier done than dealing with people’s pity. Why exposed one’s misfortunes and sorrows and make yourself more vulnerable. “Why should the world be over-wise,”— “In counting all our tears and sighs?” (Dunbar 6-7). Paul Laurence Dunbar paints the pain that filled his heart in his poem “We Wear the Mask”: “This debt we pay to human guile;”— “With torn and bleeding hearts we smile” (3-4).

 I believe Dunbar was addressing the pain from social injustices in America and crying out to Christ with a reference to “We smile, but oh great Christ, our cries”— “To thee from tortured souls arise” (10-11). At times, we all get tired of the vile things we find around our lives, but to change them might take a long time making it seem like a dream. Just like in Dunbar’s last stanza:

We sing, but oh the clay is vile

Beneath our feet, and long the mile,

But let the world dream otherwise (Dunbar12-14).

This poem brings points about the immorality of social injustice in America and the blindness of humanity towards it. We are all made of the same atoms (cloth), yet we place barriers of color, language, clothing and gender as excuses not to interact with one another. Don’t we realize that we are all but a grain of salt in higher collective sea that created us? I believe at the end we will be judged as we judge others with a blind eye.

Recently, I have learned to love poems and their deep meanings, at times sprinkle with tongue twisters, sorrow and joy. I never knew people emptied their souls into pages. So much to learn from these poets and many more to come. I can relate to the one’s I share with you in these pages intimately in so many ways with joy, tears and sorrow. Open a book of poems and let your heart immerse intimately into the poet’s soul; you might just find so much useful information to guide your life and see past the words.

Works Cited

Dunbar, Paul. “We Wear the Mask.” Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org/poet. Accessed Oct 5, 2021.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. “Twilight of the Idols.” Written in 1888, and first published in Germany 1889. Götzen-Dämmerung. “Twilight of the Idols: or How to Philosophize with a Hammer” is a poet and book translator (1889). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_of_the_Idols. Accessed Oct 5, 2021.

Ossip, Kathleen. “Go.” Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org/poet. Accessed Oct 5, 2021.

 Smith, Patricia. “Shoulda Been Jimi Savannah.” Poets.org, Academy of American Poets, www.poets.org/poet. Accessed Oct 5, 2021.