Jordan Hollingsworth
Professor Appling
English 1102
28 February 2016

Paper on Simon J. Ortiz “(My Father’s Song)
A poem is a set up of words out together into a piece of writing that partakes of the nature of both speech and song that is nearly always rhythmical, usually metaphorical, and often exhibits such formal elements as meter, rhyme, and stanza structure. In the poem written by Simon J. Ortiz is a very touch poem about ones father and how he misses him dearly. He recalls a memory they had once shared together. The next poem that will be laid out and made more clearer to the viewer will be a poem about a mans father and his hard work. The narrator of the story is one that is recalling his past and how he felt bad for his dad as a young boy. As he has gotten older and more understanding to challenges in life he starts to relative the hardship and to feel bad for his dad. Some expressions or descriptions that are used inside poems are figurative language, symbolisms, metaphor, simile, and personification. Figurative language is words or expressions with a meaning that is different from the literal interpretation. Symbolisms are the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities. In the essay we will discuss the ideas of how the author uses different ways that they have put there thought together in the poem. Metaphor is a term of used to imply comparison between two literally incompatible items; it does not use explicit connective words. Simile is an explicit comparison of items from different classes using words such as like, as, appears, or seems. Personification is attributing human feelings or characteristics to abstractions or inanimate objects. These are some things that you might find with in the poem that we are going to come to a come closer understanding of by the end of this essay. Although we might not find every single one of these with in each poem, either one or more will soon pop out to us from reading it. These figurative language terms are the ways that the authors of these poems have more of a appealing tone to the reads. In makes it more difficult to read in simpler terms because is someone had never read a poem in there life and just went and picked one up they would not know what the heck they were talking about with the use of figurative language. They could just not use these, but reading a poem would be a lot more boring then it is right now. These words bring each poem that uses them together and a better poem.
In this poem written by Simon J. Ortiz is a heart filled one about the narrator’s father, it seems to be that the narrator was very close to there father and felt a very special way about him. The narrator of the poem, which is promptly the written, he is about how he misses his father dearly and is remembering the times that they have shared. In the poem he has two main things he shifts from being sad in his descriptions then to being happy. As read in the poem the author Ortiz likes to look at the little things in life such as how he describes the texture of the sand when he is recalling one of the memories with his father. In the Eleventh Edition The Norton Introduction to Literature by Kelly J. Mays, located on page 542 on lines 8-12 in the poem “ My Father’s Song” written by Simon J. Ortiz,
“We Planted corn one Spring at Acu—
We planted several times
But this one particular time
I remember the soft damp sand
In my hand.”
As you read this little part of the poem above it shows some of the points that we have talked about above. This is the part where he is describing what had helped him remember this time in is life. He uses personification with the use of emotions to help him to explicitly exaggerate its effects on the poem itself. This is the place where you would not think so much of it actually catching your attention, but it is some where in the poem that helps you remember the strong hold it has on the author towards his father.
In the next poem written by Robert Hayden it is a eye opener to some that have completely forgotten the hardship and understanding of ones father. As a boy Robert Hayden was not raised by the wealthiest of family, a low-income family raised him. Some people during the time period that this poem was written would say that it he about race, class, and nations. Although it is the total opposite, this poem was written about the relationship of a father and son and all the love, misunderstanding, admiration, fear, and even hate that comes along with it. In the Eleventh Edition The Norton Introduction to Literature by Kelly J. Mays, located on page 540 on lines 6-9 in the poem “Those Winter Sundays” written by Robert Hayden,
“ Sunday too my father got up early and put on his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one thanked him.”
As read above from the poem “Those Winter Sundays” on lines 6-9 you can see how he shows a since of sympathy for his dad by explaining in detail and how he feels like he was not appreciated that much. He explains the small details like about his dads hands and how they have basically been worn out from how hard he works. When you read it you can get that the setting of it was back in the days around the time of civil movement and they were broke. When he says in the clip of the poem above about how he was changing “in the blueblack cold”, shows that they probably didn’t have air conditioning. Which guessing is could be a simile in some parts because of the way it is being use the describe the coldness inside there house. This poem is a very powerfully poem back in its time and even know. It shows how people grow and mature over time to get a better understanding of how life wasn’t always how they thought it was. It was much difficult then they every thought and there parents were the rock of all of it. This poem is basically a thank you letter to his dad and a I’m sorry letter as well. To explain that he know how hard he worked and he is so grateful for it, but he is also sorry that it took him so long to finally realize that he worked as hard as he did. As you read and understand these two poems as a whole you find the way that they are the same. Although it might not be the way you thought it was going to be, it is still a connection that they have. They are both poems about their fathers, ones is about how he misses his father, and the other is about how he has come to a appreciating his father. These two authors are a very good read they both are sad and happy which isn’t such a bad combination. One things that stuck out to me about theses poems was the whole idea that it was about ones father. My father is a very important figure in my life so I thought it would just be right to choose these poems.
Work Cited
Ortiz, Simon. “My Father’s Song.” The Norton Introduction to Literature, Portable 11th ed. New York: Norton, 2014. 542-542. Print.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Those Winter Sundays." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 2008. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.
"Simon J. Ortiz." : My Father's Song Critical Analysis. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.
Poets.org. Academy of American Poets. Web. 20 Mar. 2016.