My teacher handed each of us different poems to annotate and write blogs about. I was given “La Migra” by Pat Mora. Here is a link so you can read it: http://betweenstories.livejournal.com/548.html
When I first looked at the title of the poem, I thought that Mora had used “migra” as a shortened version of the Spanish word “migración,” which would be different than “immigración” in the sense that migration is simply a moving of people without reference to borders or countries whereas as immigration is a heated debate often having everything to do with how someone enters a country. Upon reading the poem, I found that “la migra” instead is used to mean Border Control or Immigration Police. My perceived meaning and the actual meaning of “migra” had a huge effect on how I read and understood the poem. “La Migra,” according to the two speakers of the poem, is a game that a Mexican maid and a man working as Border Patrol insist on playing. By turning this serious event into a childlike game, Mora shows the way in which many people view immigration. Instead of being a life or death scenario, immigration is presented as win or lose situation; people’s lives and jobs are reduced to a mere game in which there must be one clear winner and loser, which is a far stretch from what happens in real life. Mora splits the poem into two stanzas. The first is voiced by someone playing the Border Control. This man exudes authority because he wears a “badge and sunglass.” He is presented as an overbearing sexist and racist. As the Border Control, he can “touch [the other player] wherever” simply because he has accessories that can harm the other person. This has sexual implications, even though immigration is shown as a child’s game. His frank statement that he cannot speak Spanish shows that he believes he is better than the Mexican maid and that he views Spanish almost as a dirty language, undeserving of his effort. The Border Control adds the fact that he has a gun almost as an afterthought, which turns out to be a smug comment, due to the fact that the Mexican maid should already know of the weapon; he wishes to remind her anyway, a slight threat to her well-being and a push for her to follow the rules. The second stanza is from the perspective of the Mexican Maid player of the game. She notices everything wrong with the Border Patrol: he “has a flat [tire]” and is weighed down by his heavy “hat, glasses, badges, shoes, gun.” The maid believes she has an advantage because of her keen sense of perception in comparison to the Border thinking that add-ons will be important to his success. She notes that she has extensive knowledge of the desert, knowing “where to rest, where to drink,” meaning that her survival skills will assist her in the game, leading her to the victory. In Spanish she says “agua dulce brota aquí,” which is sweet water flows here; the desert holds oases of which only she knows. She ends by referencing the Border Patrol’s lack of Spanish knowledge, which will be detrimental to him. I liked this poem’s presentation of a controversial topic as a childlike game--this was definitely an interesting and unorthodox way to write about immigration. Mora’s change of perspective allowed for me to see both sides of the story. I don't really like getting political online, but this poem basically requires a political opinion. I thought Mora’s writing was genius and well structured, but it was very biased and hateful. Her characterization of Border Patrol, which is meant to be a representation of all immigration police, as purely evil people is unrealistic and divisive. These are people who are trying to do their jobs and protect our country, yet Mora brings all of them down. Her writing essentially takes a huge number of people and classifies as awful human beings who want to hurt others and make unwanted sexual advances on immigrants. Furthermore, the Border Patrol not speaking Spanish is not very realistic, taking into consideration that in reality most of them do have a working knowledge of the language and use it on a daily basis for their jobs. I realize that, like in every field, there are corrupt workers who will misuse their powers, but the blatant hatred in the poem is completely unfair. What did you guys think of the poem? Keep reading, Steven from SHS
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Hello again, Internet Explorers. This is your captain speaking (figuratively, of course, because I’m not your captain nor am I speaking). Please strap your metaphorical seatbelts because you are about to enter a poetry analysis!
This blog post’s is about a very transcendentalistic poem called “Transcendentalism.” Put your mouse and click right here to be redirected to the poem. In the poem, the narrator recalls an unspecified college class in which the professor lectures on transcendentalism. While the professor is feeling philosophical and trying to get his students to open up their minds, he is widely ignored by the students, who do not particularly care about what he has to say. His address to the students is described as fiery and passionate, but the students respond coldly to it, seeing the lecture drifting “against us like snow.” This comparison shows the rift between the professor and the students and is ironic because of the difference of his passion and how the students are so unaffected by it. Even though she is not particularly moved by the professor’s questioning of his own existence, one student slightly relates to the message. She questions why “no one loved me, stomping on the pedals of my little bicycle.” This thought is more related to her childhood, while the professor is thinking more about his whole life. At least they share this in common. Another irony is that the college student knows the reason they hate her (“I was insufferable”), but the college professor is still struggling to figure it out himself. Even though the question is foreign to the narrator at first, somehow idea sticks with her for the rest of her life which “remains a mystery” to her. Perhaps the message was not as unimportant as the student first judged it to be. Like in all of her poems, Perillo soaks “Transcendentalism” in a bath plentiful of imagery and figurative language, all of which contribute to the meaning of the poem. For example, when the professor is talking he “stabbed his chest with his hands curled like forks before coughing up the question.” This imagery allows the readers to see the intensity and near violence of the professor-- an insight to how impassioned he is. The students stay like “musk oxen...hunkered” in an indifferent stance to the professor's lecture. Even the student who is deeply affected by what the message views the class as “such a snooze fest.” Perhaps this shows her fear of accepting what the professor has to say. Or maybe it is better explained when she views the professor reading from his own book merely as “nap time.” The student, it would appear, is annoyed by the fact that the professor is trying to make transcendentalism his own and force it on others, when everyone should learn how to make it his or her own. What do you think? Keep reading, Steven from SHS “Early Cascade”
Lucia Perillo Read the poem right here. Lucia Perillo strikes again, this time with her poem “Early Cascade.” She writes of an emotional encounter with a tomato which seems to be a moment of growth for herself after what may have been the end of a relationship or friendship. Perillo writes that she “couldn't have waited” for somebody's return. This return, if it were ever to come, would be far after the prime time to pick a ripe tomato. Therefore, the narrator cannot wait in good conscious for the person to return because the tomato will go to waste. This is just a conjecture, but it seems that in the past the narrator shared a sort of ritual with someone that included eating a ripe tomato. Although the person is absent, the narrator continues in the rite, almost as a form of healing for herself. She would rather continue on and eat the tomato instead of forcing herself to wait even longer for someone who might never come. The narrator describes the tomato flesh as “not mealy (like last year’s) or bitter.” This reinforces the idea that she is trying to move on from a difficult loss. Because it is not mealy or bitter, the tomato does not leave a bad taste in the narrator’s mouth. In a sense, the tomato represents the loss. The narrator is able to move past the bitterness and difficulty of her loss and take the first steps of moving on. Then there is the second stanza and a shift in the poem. She “could have gagged on the sweetness” when she first bites into a slice of the tomato. The sweetness comes as an unexpected and almost unwanted surprise. “The dirt itself” would have been better in her eyes, mainly because she is so used to turn awful taste. Perhaps the speaker is scared of what the sweetness and the future will hold for her. Of course, the future is full of possibilities, and that is precisely what makes it so terrifying. To wrap up the poem, the speaker says it is the first night in a while where she is finally taking time for herself, and this is ultimately her first difficult step to healing. Keep reading, Steven from SHS Analysis of “Dangerous Life”
written by Lucia Perillo Read the poem by clicking…wait….okay, right here. “Dangerous Life” speaks of a difficult decision that the speaker has to make. She begins the poem right off by recalling the moment she dropped out of medical school. Of course, given that medical school is known for being extremely difficult and stressful, the reader might at first infer that the speaker quit for these reasons. However, she quit because she discovered that the “stiff they gave me had book 9 of Paradise Lost and the lyrics to “Louie Louie” tattooed on her thighs.” The poem does not directly specify the exact reason why this discernment pushed the speaker to her withdrawal, yet one can assume that the tattoo made the cadaver seem too alive for the speaker--too human, per se. Seeing the words inked across the body’s thighs could have made it unbearable for the speaker to work and made her cognizant that her whole career would consist of working with real people, with their whole existence in her own hands. Obviously, this decision to leave medical school was not so burdensome to the speaker. There is no evident remorse or difficulty of her exit from medical school. The speaker goes on to speak of the rest of her day, almost brushing off the fact that she has dropped out of medical school. She discusses her encounter with a Bunsen burner. With use of enjambment, it at first appears that the speaker puts her hand directly on a Bunsen burner in an effort to burn herself, but upon further reading it is revealed that she burns an old Girl Scout sash and the badges attached to it. The badges are for “Careers…Cookery, Seamstress...and Baby Maker,” which the speaker says are a “measure of my worth.” It appears that these exact badges are actually more representative of societal expectations of what women should do and be like. The cooking badge is something actually useful and might have truly been handed out by the Girl Scouts. However, babymaker edges more towards offensive, and this is presumably why she burns the badges. She is giving the middle finger to the world and its expectations in a her own small but efficient way. Only one badge is salvaged: “I kept the merit badge marked Dangerous Life.” She recalls when she was awarded the pin. The poem shifts and the narrator’s mother is mentioned. Her mother calls her, complaining about what people think of a woman who is “”thirty, unsettled, living on food stamps, coin-op Laundromats & public clinics.” Even her own mother is unable to see past the harsh and unreasonable expectations which have been put upon her daughter. Instead of trying to help her daughter and understand the problem, the mother chooses instead to judge and become angry. The narrator, instead of succumbing to the hatred, continues on, showing her own strength. She speaks of how she occasionally takes the “lanyards from their shoebox, practice baying...to the moon.” The Dangerous Life badge is one thing in her life that is constant and reminds her to keep going, because “a smart girl could find her way out of anything, alive.” The narrator realizes that she lives a dangerous life and believes that she really can make it through anything life throws at her. The difficult decision is made to simply keep going, and that is exactly what she does. Maybe she is not good enough for medical school or society, but she has a badge for Dangerous Life, and she is going to keep living and surviving. -Steven |
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