Comparative Poetry Analysis
Shyla Woods Hour 5
Introduction
"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better." I will be comparing and contrasting "Prayer to the Pacific" and "Tornado at Taledaga". My elements for analysis will be Tone and Word Choice, Figurative Language, and Structure and Form.
Tone and Word Choice
In Tornado at Talledega Gwendolyn Brooks is respectful and seems like she really cares about the trees and nature, like in lines 5-10. She is telling sort of what people think, "They are unimportant now. They cannot sass." She also seems so serious, that she almost seems angry. In Prayer to the Pacific Leslie Marmon Silkos attitude is very respectful. She also speaks to it like a person, like in line 25, " And so from that time immemorial,. I also think the words used make it seem like she is being very very serious.
Figurative Language
In Tornado at Talladega, most all stanza two is personification of the trees. It almost seems like she is looking at all this nature that is destroyed.For example in lines 7 and 8 it says, "They are inimportant now. They cannot sass anymore." In Prayer to the Pacific, there is personification in lines 10, 12-14, 22, 29, 32. For example in line 22 it says, " Grandfather turtle rolled in the sand four times." Grandfather is a human trait, I don't think that animals call themselves generations or grandfather.
Structure and Form
In Tornado at Talladega there is uneven lines, it is very short, there are uneven stanzas, it is free verse, and at the endish of the poem is line 14 which is all alone. I think she wants that line to be important to the reader. In Prayer to the Pacific there is a random line spacing, indents, and there is random stops, like in line 9, where it has a whole blank line except for the end where it says, " to China." The rhythm is kind of make it also sound like a prayer. The image that the whole poem creates in my mind is kind of like a huge wave.
Conclusion
The main points of my analysis were Tone and Word Choice, Figurative Language, and Structure and Form. The authors style affected the poems a lot by being able to show that you should be able to show feelings not just to people but to nature too. In "Tornado at Taladega" I think the over all theme is that showing empathy for the things that are affected by the storm is not bad. In "Prayer to the Pacific" I think the over all theme is to respect the ocean just as if it was person.