San Jose State University Faithful by Dara Wier Poem Analysis

Analyze ONE poem in a clear essay, proving a single thesis

Your essay should be more than a page, with short quotes from the poem to support your explanations.

How to do this: first annotate the poem, looking for metaphors, symbols, tone, and all the other devices we’ve been learning. My recommended thesis is “The author uses devices like ______, ______, and _____ to enhance a theme/message of ____________. (this may be a five paragraph essay but doesn’t have to be)

Another possible thesis is something like “the author uses imagery and symbolism of youth versus those of aging to show readers that life is short.”

Do not use “I” or “I think,” do not tell me whether you liked the poem, and do not use words like maybe/I guess/kind of. Keep your analysis in present tense.

Death Is Intended

by Linda Pastan, 2005, USA

On Feb 6, 67-year-old Guy Waterman—naturalist, outdoorsman, husband – decided to climb a New Hampshire Mountain, lie down on the cold stones and die overnight of exposure. “Death is intended,” he wrote. –New York Times Book Review

.. .the melancholy beauty of giving it all up. —Robert Hass

Isn’t that what Eskimos did when they were old,

dragged themselves through a wilderness

of ice and up some mountain?

Then they could fall asleep forever,

their dark eyes speckled with falling snow—

not suicide exactly, but the opening

of a door so death could enter.

“Quit while you’re ahead,” my father told me

as I was feeding quarters into slot machines.

And that’s what Waterman did, he quit

before infirmity could catch him, or other afflictions

whose breath he could already smell.

But I wanted more: a waterfall of coins

spilt on my lap, the raw electric charge

of money. I came away with nothing,

but I still want more, if only more chapters

in the family book I’m part of: I want

to read all the unfolding stories—each child

a mystery only time can solve.

Was it bravery or cowardice, what Waterman did,

or are those simply two sides of a coin,

like the coin some casual God might flip,

deciding who would live or die that day?

I’d rather flip the coin myself but not at 67.

And not quite yet, I tell myself at 70, as spring

streams in over our suburban hills, enflaming

even the white New Hampshire mountains.

Faithful

Dara Wier, 2008, USA

You come as close as the skin on my face,

As if you were a sure enough wind for me to walk into.

In woodgrain on a doorframe of a door I walk out of

You wander and I wander with you.

With luciferin, luciferase* and oxygen you light the way.

A mid-summer’s late evening scatters you so

That by midnight all of the stars that surround us

By morning by cresting by curving by blazing,

You are light that has passed through my eyes.

I see you in profile as if sharpened and stenciled

Examining creases in the palm of my hand.

Exchanging places in ground fog with black flares.

What is this translucence you’ve dropped between us,

When will a sure enough wind arrive to blow this curtain aside?

*Compounds that glow naturally, found in fireflies