Poetry Analysis: Persimmons Essay

try out through. Surely, most people get down f obliterateher experienced this feeling before, the feelings of macrocosm seen, exclusively not truly seen. As if every part of their being, their roots, their culture, and history meant goose egg and holds no value to any angiotensin-converting enzyme but themselves, just as the loud loudspeaker system is raised in a bi-lingual, bi-culture atmosphere although most of us may be forgotten throughout our life sequence from daily encounters or short price relationships semester long classmates and professors, the poesy Persimmons by Li-Young Lee reveals to us with his brilliant routine of imagery, symbol, and other literary devices, emotions so rooted, that they almost escape words.In the song, the truth revealed is that we will approximatelyday fade away from people and this world. scarce that the current beauty lies during the events in our lives and until the finale, we be the ones to hold the sweet, ripe Persimmon, a pious and distinct sun inside individually of us golden and warm. Li-Young Lee implements imagery and symbolism to underline the metamorphosis of the early life of the struggles of social placement of a youthfulness American Chinese boy to the duncical passions of a adolescent man. Persimmons teach us that even if we may go blind, just similar the speakers catch in the poem, it comes to show that our experiences of life, that despite not everyone will appreciate, or understand fully, that it is something that will forever remain etched in our souls.At first the poem starts out a bit scattered. There were several(prenominal) pieces that did not seem to follow the time and meaning, but while patently scattered, his memories do in concomitant connect in several ways. As one specific device, most of his recollections involve the symbol of the Chinese fruit, persimmons. The poem begins with an unpleasant memory from the speakers sixth grade classroom where he recalls being slapp ed on the head and ordered to stand in the corner for not cognize the difference/between the words persimmon and clearcutness(3-5). Right at that scrap the speakers attitude is that of confusion. In the first stanza, we learn that Mrs. Walker was the speakers teacher in sixth gradeIn sixth grade Mrs. WalkerSlapped the back down of my headand made me stand in the cornerfor not knowing the differencebetween persimmon and meticulousness.How to choose persimmons. This is precision. (1-6)To Mrs. Walker, the point is simple the young boy, whose native language is Chinese, simply cannot attain and detention the elements of slope. Clearly he conf aims the words that argon seen from Mrs. Walkers point of view to have nothing in common, but maybe only holds similar sounds and that is all. tho in the boys mind, the two words are connected in a way that Mrs. Walker will neer grasp without delving deep. A specific literary device that Lee expends is the choice of enjambment at the w ord choose, (6) which breaks the first stanza and draws attention to the act of selection, and the process of make choices. Although in the first stanza it is seen that the speaker, as a child and as a student is stripped from the power to choose in the process and codes of the hap of his classroom assimilation, he regains power by justifying his linguistic conflations of the words persimmon and precision, (5) by connecting the words through their similar sounds and by symbolic standoff How to choose/ persimmons. This is precision (6 7) and fight and fright, wren and yarn (31).While justifying the dissolve pot of his words, he also re-claims control by demonstrating his command of the English language. In the second stanza, however, Lee elaborates on the correct way of conservatively selecting and eating a persimmon, and along with that it is affirmed that the speaker does in point know the difference between the two words. The speaker reveals his understanding of precision in the diction being used by Lee to take in how to pick out and eat a persimmon the words flaccid, sweet, sniff, and brown-spotted, are given to the fruit characterizing it and transcending the physical sense of the Chinese fruit and transforming it into an primal element, and symbol. Whereas the character of Mrs. Walkerwould fall in the category of the teachers that one may meet throughout life. It can be anyone from a school teacher, a semester long college peer, a random onlooker, or society itself-importance. However, these teachers not valuate ones somebodyality, but are also ignorant. In delineate terms a soulfulness may be treated as a sheep, when in fact, they are the ones fenced in, not able to reach, see or feel further they do not bother to survey into the deep and enigmatic waters of people, Self, and emotions, in this case, the boys mind. The teacher is not aware that his mind is full of different worlds the world or emotions, and his rich people culture. The only t hing they perceive is that the boy may have a problem that the boy has trouble with words, which in a way he does, but for him, the words that tend to stick out of the page for him are because of the assimilations that they induceRipe ones are soft and brown-spotted.Sniff the bottoms. The sweet oneWill be fragrant. How to eatPut the knife away, lay down the newspaper.Peel the skin tenderly, not to tear the meat.Chew the skin, suck it,and swallow. Now, eat the meat of the fruit,so sweet,all of it, to the heart.Can Mrs. Walker and anyone belonging to this prosaic world even care to imagine the world within him? To the speaker a persimmon is precision, because one needs the ability of perceiving a precise persimmon and the persimmon itself is precision by its existence a soft fruit, the shape, the smell of a ripe one is an art not everyone has the natural endowment to spot one and the proper knowledge of how to eat one, just equal Mrs. Walker incorrectly prepares the persimmons for the class, as she uses a knife to cut it up (41) as if she were cutting up this demonstrates her violation of the Chinese culture of the speaker.The poem takes on a dramatic turn at the third stanza, where the speaker fastforwards through time. Here the speaker describes the moment of a passionate experience with his l over. Here by Lees use of symbolism and contrasting word choice is solid because of specific time and place it is being used. In this moment, the speaker has forgotten his Chinese, this could represent the historical problems of assimilation to have faded in the aspect of the triumph over the English language. Although he has perhaps gained societal acceptance as an Asiatic American, he has also gravely lost, where his freeing out wins his gain the loss of his native language, the loss of his culture. As a second interpretation would be that when the speaker forgets about the Dew and the fact that they are Naked, but recalls the Crickets chiu chiu and that Ni, wo means you and me represents his total fascination in the moment, the moment when two get byrs unite, creating a union, one perhaps forgets that fact of nakedness, because perhaps in that beautiful moment, one does not feel naked, because their significant other is there, and they are all they need to feel covered, a moment were all barriers are broken, both feel free comfortable in the bareness, where he even forgets the background sound playing.By the use of symbolism, it is know that Persimmon is the main symbol, and so acts as a metaphor of the love scene, focusing on the passionate experience that marks the speaker for life. In the ninth stanza, a new scene is present and there is other shift in time, this time the speaker is a mature adult, tour his parents, but also revisiting old memories, that arouse ancient feelings. In this particular stanza, Lees use of acute imagery is openly present, where he describes the speakers elderly father who has gone blindI rummage, looking for something I lost.I find a box.three paintings by my fatherHibiscus leaf and a white flower.Two cats preening.Two persimmons, so full they want to drop from the cloth..Which is this?.Oh, the feel of the wolf tail on the silk, the strength, the tense precision in the wrist.Eyes closed. These I motley blind.Some things never leave a personScent of the tomentum cerebri of one you love,The texture of persimmons, in your palm, the ripe weight. (62-88). Lees use of concrete details allows has a great impact and effect on this particular poem, because it draws the reader in, allowing them to engage and become more attune to the feelings the poet is hard to transmit the sight of the Hibiscus, the movements of the cats preening (75). Although the speakers father has lost his eyesight, he can still see the world. When a person goes blind, they are shut out from the world, but the thing that stays with the person transcends the sense of vision the smell, the texture, the weight of the pe rsimmon that the father speaks of that will never leave a person, (85) that the feel of a ripe persimmon in the palm will remain a part of you , just exchangeable the speakers culture, his memories and experiences. This could also represent an important shift in the poems tone, in that the speakers in the long run accepts his culture or art of reminiscing of familiar emotions, both like being back home.His experiences, although not entirely positive, have helped him grow into the man he is now. Li-Young Lee, by using sensory imagery and precise diction along with the snug stanza structure, reveals to the reader that, despite the speakers his bi-cultural past, he has now realized, through his experiences, that some of the most important things will not always be conspicuous and he is at peace with his culture. The obscurity of words that Lee demonstrates in this poem correlates with the obscure and that of which is not accepted in our materialistic, and practical world. But the bitter-sweet irony of it all is that at times, as soon as something like a marvelous feeling or thought is put into words, its secret beauty may diminish. This poem is not only a self contained piece of poetry. It is art, a ticket to see, witness, and feel between our and the poets sexual world. Li-Young Lee, knowing that words cannot directly express these feelings he uses his poetry as a tool to evoke such feelings in us utilizing the informal poetic form and the advantage of symbolism and imagery, has allowed us to picture detailed, vivid scenes to show us how superficial and apathetic the world around us can be to the secretly immense, and passionate world in each of us.CitationDmitry, Divov. Analysis of Persimmons by Li-Young Lee. Web. 25 Feb 2012. .