Childhood Memories in Nikki-rosa by Nikki Giovanni Essay

In the autobiography we are told an account by Rosa Cassettari an Italian immigrant coming to the United States. Rosa is from northern Italy and is coming to America to join her husband Santino who works in Missouri as an iron miner. She reluctantly leaves behind her young son, but is curious about American life. Her journey to America, her move to Chicago, and her job at the settlement all revealed changes that occurred in Rosa. Her story was successful, not based on the amount of money she made, but in being able to establish a good life for herself in America where she had her freedom.

The structure of this poem is 3 stanzas with all the lines in the poem except Lines 9 and 15 in iambic tetrameter. In this metric pattern, a line has four pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables, for a total eight syllables. The internal structure of the poem is the narrator talking about the mask the African American people wear and the oppression that hurts them. Then the second stanza is sarcastic and negative towards the idea that it will ever change. Then the last stanza shows that they cling to Christ and the journey will be long.

Because the speaker is direct and clear, we are able to recognize the nostalgic tone simply because of what the speaker is explicitly telling us. However, the structure of the poem also contributes to the tone. There are no punctuations throughout the entire poem, yet we still read it slow enough to create a dramatic and sad mood. The poem is divided into fourteen couplets, each with a substantial gap between them. At the end of a couplet, we are forced to slow down and fully pause before moving on to a new section. In addition, most of the lines are complete clauses

Many poets have conversations with other authors within their literature. They do not talk directly, as if addressing each other face-to-face. Instead, they choose topics that relate and continue the conversation. This is what Nikki Giovanni’s “Nikki Rosa” and Terrence Hayes’ “Talk” does. These two poems exemplify the issue of racial misinterpretations using different literary devices to describe the issues that many black people, faced and continue to face today.

Born in Tennessee, Nikki Giovanni spent the majority of her childhood in Cincinnati, Ohio, after moving with her family. Well acquainted with Knoxville, because of her family’s frequent trips to Tennessee from Ohio, Giovanni decided to go to college at Fisk University. Giovanni had trouble complying to the foreign rules and way of life at the University, which ultimately resulted in her expulsion. After being expelled, Giovanni thought about priorities and the importance of a college education. Giovanni negotiated a deal with the dean of Fisk University to allow her to re-enroll and graduate with the class of 1966 (Giovanni). Without her college education, Giovanni would be incapable of birthing her thought-provoking, mind-rendering poetry at the caliber in which she does. Shortly after receiving her graduate degree, Giovanni 's grandmother, Louvenia Watson, passed away. To help cope with the loss of her beloved grandmother, Giovanni started to write and eventually produced her first book of poetry, Black Feeling Black Talk. Wanting to publish her newly written work, Giovanni asked numerous publishers to give her an opportunity, but to no avail. Instead of waiting for the greenlight from a publisher, Nikki Giovanni self-published Black Feeling Black Talk using her personal finances (Giovanni). After composing several collections of poetry, Giovanni became a New York Times best-selling author and an acclaimed professor at Virginia Tech. Following the tragedy of the Virginia

All Souls, written by Michael Patrick MacDonald, is the story of a low-income family from Boston that ends up moving from the projects in Columbia Point to the projects South Boston, also known as Southie. From then, the book focuses on the MacDonald family and their lives in 1960’s South Boston and in particular the crime, violence and corruption that existed within South Boston but most importantly, how it was that the MacDonald family viewed Southie and how those views changed overtime. On the first page of the book, Michael Patrick MacDonald starts of by recalls his mother at one point calling Southie, “The Best Place in the World” (MacDonald 1). The comparison from Ma calling Southie the best place in the world compared to a couple of pages ahead where she says that she’d “Never come back to this hell hole of a fucking neighborhood ever again” (MacDonald 15). This change of mentality of not only Ma, but the rest of the family, especially Michael Patrick MacDonald, is categorized within C. Wright Mills’ The Sociological Imagination. In The Sociological Imagination, Mills speaks on two ways of thinking that are very prevalent in MacDonald’s All Souls. According to Mills’ there is an “ordinary” way of thinking and a then there is having a “sociological imagination”. In All Souls, both of these different mindsets are portrayed thru the MacDonald family as well as within their community of Old Colony. All Souls tells the story of a community suffering from the “ordinary” way of thinking and what kind of negative outcomes their fixed mindset.

Some people might agree that a broken home might be better then no home, or maybe having no home is better then having a hopeless home. The narrator who is unnamed in Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”, is from a home that you can carry good and horrid memories with you. In the short story “Sonny’s Blues”, the narrator along with his entire household all have personal suffering that affect their lives tremendously. Consider that almost everyone has problems in their life and household, weather you are rich or poor. Although we all want the best for our selves, many people attempt to escape depression and suffering in a couple of different ways. In today’s world, African-Americans are still judged based on their skin color. Sure, there is hope to over come pre judgement, it is clear not all black people steal and do drugs to escape suffering. “Sonny 's Blues" describes a particular time in American society, for a black family that struggles to live in Harlem during the 1950’s. Being minorities and living in a ghetto area, they suffer from limited possibilities. "Sonny 's Blues” defines racial issues, suffering from alcoholism and addicting drugs, and responsibility. This is very important, because racism and drugs should not be a way to run from emotional feelings. All in result of living in Harlem, drug dealing happens in the playgrounds near the housing projects, every character is

Poetry has always been a way of expressing emotions about life experiences. Poetry allows us to use symbolism to express ideas without the use of proper language. Things like our feelings about local scenery and culture can be expressed in symbols and imagery. One example of this, Ron Rash’s poem “Local Color”, explores the concepts of place and identity and suggests they are intertwined. Examples of how place and identity are intertwined are shown in the grandfather’s identity as a regular at the local bar, the grandmother’s identity as a homemaker and wife at home, and the idea that by going to the church the grandfather was going to change his identity.

The maltreatment of Indigenous Australians in the town of Eurandangee is represented in many poems, but consistently with reference to The Royal. Rourke, the owner of the bar, makes mention of the ‘… darkies … buying Seppelts out the back to drink there in the park’, which alludes to their segregation and the communities lack of acceptance of Aboriginal people at the time. This notion and oblique reference aid the idea that this community, like most of the time in this specific regard, is dysfunctional. The cynical tone of Sharon; ‘Micky Rourke … is not so keen on blacks. No problem with their money though,’ further represents this same issue. So long as the white community members didn’t have to drink with the ‘darkies’, or see them, or share the same areas of the bar with them there was no reason why their money meant any less than white persons. Similarly, the enforced stereotypes and limitations of women within Eurandangee is seen through Stan’s poem. His wife Peggy, is represented as being confined to the prescribed stereotypes of 1950’s women, mothers and wives, as he tells us she is, ‘… in the kitchen … with the casserole … ready when I’m home at seven’. The unequal treatment of both Aborigines and women within this community highlight it’s lack of cohesiveness, with distinct segregations and limitations being put on these groups and

Sonia Sanchez, a poet who contributed to the movement by defining what black identity was during this time period. And by celebrating black culture in the forms of poetic forms by using the everyday lives of African American women and men. This was fairly known in works such as homecoming and TCB. Referencing back to Nikki Giovanni, in the short poem For Saundra, which observed the features of a personal experience by incorporating larger social and societal concerns. Such as privilege vs. prejudice, Giovanni does this by addressing the things around her and writing about things that she enjoys to write about. And Giovanni tries to express this in this poem by saying in that in lines 1-5: “i wanted to write, a poem, that rhymes but revolution doesn’t lend itself to be be-bopping” (880). Giovanni wanted to describe this as for why she doesn’t write on pleasant subjects as nature but also dismisses this era’s injustices such as lack of opportunities within the African American

Several of the men at The Room at the Inn lacked self-worth, admitted inadequate outlooks from unsuccessful educational and economic prospects, and felt success was not conceivable due to their existing socioeconomic position. A shared component amongst the twelve men was the absence of positive identity. Each individual acknowledged themselves through failures rather than culture or former achievements. It appears when one is sealed in such economic anguish, developing awareness of one’s cultural identity is insoluble. A rejection of the dominant culture with respect to opportunity undoubtedly occurs, which is clearly plausible. One individual alluded to the notion that life doesn’t have a Black or White problem it has a rich or poor problem, thus financial scorn has no color. I am not sure if the gentleman discussing these concerns held back in debate, with respect to race, due to the fact that I am a White male employed in a habitat, delivering him a positive

The main point of this poem is Maya Angelou talking about her homeland, Africa. The narrator starts to describe the land of Africa by using Angelou’s body as a representation. Then proceeded to describe how white people came and invaded her land, thus invading her body. The white people came and killed her people, took and sold her people, and enforced their religious beliefs. However, instead of carrying a tone of sad regret over those events, the narrator describes her strength, that despite those events in Angelou’s life she continues to move on and be strong.

Rachel Whiteread's “House” from 1993 forces us as the audience to focuses on the feeling and memories of the inside space of a house that we normally forget about, such as the memories or lives that evolves inside them. By using a concrete cast Whiteread is able to creates a solid feeling to this almost abstract space. And by placing this large concrete sculpture in the middle of the redeveloping neighborhood where the house and many others like it once stood automatically creates a connection from this sculpture to lives of the people who once lived inside of it. To analyze this further, this composition makes us remember not just the negative space that’s easily forgotten, but of the poorer neighborhoods similar to the neighborhood where

A memory is told with different tiny details that it changes. In the last line she says “If he began with a/ smear of red instead of blue, it could have been a chapter/ instead of an era” (Leav). Similar to the quote above, she’s saying that if Picasso’s painting was changed to a different color then that painting wouldn’t be able to tell his story, only a small part of it. That is how memories are, we only tell the small parts of it and start to change it. It is cool how she compares memories to Picasso’s painting. This will help strengthen my ode if I describe as to what a painter thinks. Overall, I really like her poems and her style of writing to tell about life.

First is alliteration, an example of alliteration is “longer and love” (Line 26). Another example is “soul and satisfied” (Line 30). Secondly is assonance, for example “How could one not have loved her great still eyes” (Line 10). Thirdly is simile, “And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture”. (Line 14). The poet compares the fountains of verses to his soul by the call of the grassland to the water. The repetition of the line “Tonight I can write the saddest lines.” (Lines 1, 5 & 11). And that emphasize that the saddest lines are found in between our hands. In this poem there are fifteen stanzas and two lines. In each stanza there are two line. So, the total number of lines are thirty two lines. The theme of “Tonight I Can Write" is about memories of a lost love and the pain they can cause. Throughout the poem the speaker recalls the details of a relationship that is now