Author Archives
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Analysis of Léon Damas’s Hiccup
“Hiccup” (“Hoquet”), like “Bargain”, is from Damas’s first collection, Pigments (1937). It reveals the inferiority complex felt by blacks of Africa and the Caribbean because of centuries of abuse and exploitation by white European colonials. The solution to this problem… Read More ›
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Analysis of Constantine Cavafy’s He Was Asking about the Quality
The charms of shopping have never been more celebrated than in this most delicate and intriguing poem about mutual and tacit recognition. He Was Asking about the Quality— (Πὠτoυσε για την πoιóτητα—) elaborates on a moment of successful intersubjective gaze… Read More ›
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Analysis of Gottfried Benn’s Happy Youth
Published in his first collection Morgue and Other Poems, “Happy Youth” (“Schöne Jugend,” also translated as “Beautiful Youth”) lyrically captures the world of disease and death that the young doctor Benn confronted daily while treating the poor and suffering in… Read More ›
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Analysis of Titsian Tabidze’s Gunib
Gunib, composed in 1927, belongs to Titsian Tabidze’s second creative period, after he left behind his early affection for European-inspired symbolism and before he began penning overtly socialist-realist poems on Soviet themes. Gunib is perhaps the most profound meditation in… Read More ›
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Analysis of Paul Valéry’s The Graveyard by the Sea
The Graveyard by the Sea is a meditative poem by French poet Paul Valéry. The poem was inspired by the cemetery in his birthplace, Sète, where his parents were buried. Valéry considered the poem one of his finest meldings of… Read More ›
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Analysis of Adonis’s A Grave for New York
Written in spring 1971, this poem depicts the desolation of New York City as emblematic of empire. Adonis wrote the poem after a visit to the United States, during which he participated in an International Poetry Forum. Unlike his poem… Read More ›
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Analysis of Kim Soo-young’s The Grass
The Grass The grass lies down Waving in the east wind that drives the rain The grass lay down And finally cried. After crying the more because the day was gray It lay down again. The grass lies down Lies… Read More ›
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Analysis of Édouard Glissant’s Gorée
Gorée initially appeared in Édouard Glissant’s collection Yokes (1979), but is also included in the collection Black Salt (1998), an anthology in English translation of three separate collections of Glissant’s poetry—Le sel noir (Black Salt), Le sang rivé (Riveted Blood),… Read More ›
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Analysis of Rabindranath Tagore’s The Golden Boat
The Golden Boat, one of Rabindranath Tagore’s most famous and most enigmatic poems, is the title piece of a poetry collection of the same name. It captures the blend of earthy awareness and cosmic mysticism that—as a hallmark of Tagore’s… Read More ›
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Analysis of Reza Baraheni’s God’s Shadow
God’s Shadow: Prison Poems is Reza Baraheni’s powerful narrative, 99 pages long, of the excruciating physical and mental torture he suffered in 1973 at the hands of SAVAK, the Iranian secret police. The account is told through a vivid prose… Read More ›
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Analysis of Yehuda Amichai’s God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children
God Has Pity On Kindergarten Children God has pity on kindergarten children, He pities school children — less. But adults he pities not at all. He abandons them, And sometimes they have to crawl on all fours In the scorching… Read More ›
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Analysis of Bertolt Brecht’s Germany
Bertolt Brecht wrote a number of poems and songs that lamented the disastrous state of Nazi Germany. Germany, dating from 1933, is the most famous. Hitler’s Nazis began their totalitarian control of Germany during February 1933. Like many other communists,… Read More ›
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French Rap
In the 20th century, French-language poetry was often influenced by American music. Guillaume Apollinaire, Léopold Sédar Senghor, and Boris Vian innovatively mined jazz and blues music for their own modern poetry. In much the same way, French rap musicians have… Read More ›
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Analysis of Nguyễn Chí Thiện’s Flowers from Hell
Most, if not all, of Nguyễn Chí Thiện’s poems in the 1984 bilingual edition Flowers from Hell were composed in his head while Thiện was a political prisoner in North Vietnamese concentration camps between 1958 and 1976. Because he was… Read More ›
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Analysis of Paul Claudel’s Five Great Odes
Five Great Odes (Cinq Grandes Odes) comprises five confessional poems composed by French poet, dramatist, and diplomat Paul Claudel between 1901 and 1908. They were collected and published in book form in 1910. The first poem, The Muses (Les Muses),… Read More ›
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Analysis of Vasko Popa’s The Fiery She-Wolf
On the surface, Vasko Popa’s fifth poetry collection, Wolf Salt (1975), appears to be one of his most hermetic works since it revolves around a wolf motif without many points of reference outside of the apparent symbolic. But once the… Read More ›
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Analysis of Shin Kyeong-nim’s Farmers’ Dance
Farmers’ Dance is the title poem of Shin Kyeong-nim’s first collection of poetry, Farmers’ Dance, and an example of his minjung (folksong) poetry. In this collection, Shin presents us with a heartfelt vision of displaced farmers in South Korea who… Read More ›
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Analysis of Gu Cheng’s A Fantasia to Life
This 10-stanza poem was written in 1971 when Gu Cheng was only 15; it is a poem from among the ones he “wrote on the riverbank with twigs” (Gu xii). However, its publication and warm acceptance by the public in… Read More ›
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Analysis of Federico García Lorca’s The Faithless Wife
“The Faithless Wife” (“La casada infiel”) is part of Gypsy Ballads (Romancero gitano), Federico García Lorca’s most famous poetry cycle (1921–27), which pays tribute to the verve of Spain’s legendary outsiders whose freedom-loving spirit, wild passions, and uncompromising ways had… Read More ›
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