The Lost Baby Poem Essay, Research Paper
The Lost Baby Poem
In Lucille Clifton?s, ?The Lost Baby Poem,? the poet displays a young mother who is full of regret and guilt for her child in which she had lost to death. There are many technical devices that express the poet?s intentions and how it all fits together within this poem. First, I will be discussing what this poem is trying to convey also the denotations and connotations within this poem. Secondly, the poet uses imagery so intensely that one can almost feel the coldness of the winter chill. Lastly, I will discuss how figurative language plays a major role in the young lady?s guilt.
First of all, I noticed that this poem had been written all in lower case letters except for ?Genesee Hill? and ?Canada,? which were names of the place that they had lived. The poet had even written herself as ?i? in lower case in which it symbolizing a great shame upon herself. Then I had broken this poem into three groups in which they have already been divided. I believe the first group represents the process in which the baby in being aborted. ?The time I dropped you almost body down down to meet the waters under the city and run one with the sewage to the sea what did i know about waters rushing back what did i know about drowning or being drowned.? (1-6) I believe that in the poets mind are constant repeating visual images of her baby being drowned. That is why there is repetition with down and drowning. That?s why she is repeating herself ?what did i know,? as a sign of forgiveness.
The second group represents the excuses that the poet makes for her baby not being born as if it was a benefit for the unborn baby. For example, ?You would have been born into winter the year of the disconnected gas and no car,? (7-9) represents how poor the poet was. ?We would have made the thin walk over Genesee Hill into Canada wind,? (9-10) this represents the location in which the area that they had lived. ?To watch you slip like ice into strangers hands.? (11) I believe that the poet is trying to say that if the baby was born then it would probably be given up for adoption, living in an orphanage or just abandoned. ?You would have fallen naked as snow into winter.? (12) Since this was an unprepared problem, the baby would not have enough clothing to wear. ?If you were here i could tell you these and some other things.? By saying this, she means that if you (the baby) were here, you would have lived a miserable life.
The third and final group deals with how she has learned from this situation and how she promises to improve her ways. There are symbols and personification within this last group in which I will be discussing later on in my paper. ?If i am ever less than a mountain for you definite bothers and sisters let the rivers pour over my head let the sea take me for a spiller of seas? (15-19) The poet is making a promise to her unborn child that if she does not treat her living children right (the unborn child?s brothers and sisters), then she wants punishment. ?let black men call me stranger always,? (19-20) means that she wants to stay far away from men. She wants nothing to do with men because that is how this tragic incident happened. Lucille Clifton uses the term ?black men,? because she for one is black and she wants everyone who reads her poem to know that she is black. ?for you never named sake,? represents the unborn child. The poet is saying this because she has changed her lifestyle for her unborn child.
The imagery used within this poem deals with the strengths of the waters as well as the coldness of winter. ?What did I know about waters rushing back, what did i know about drowning or being drowned,? represents the sense of feeling. One could almost feel the power of rushing waters controlling them also feeling the struggle for grasping of air. I can imagine the feeling of discomfort every time I read this line. This also can represent the visual imagery from the poet?s perspective. As mentioned earlier, since she had witnessed this traumatic experience, she constantly sees visual image in her mind of her baby being drowned. ?To watch you slip like ice into strangers? hands you would have fallen naked as snow into winter,? (11-12) is an example of the sense of sight and display the dark colors and feeling of the cold, bleak weather. This can also be represented by the sense of feeling of the frosty cold temperature. When the poet point outs ?winter,? ?fallen naked,? ?disconnected gas,? and ?slip like ice,? I can almost feel the cold numbing my body, especially if I had ?fallen naked.?
Figurative language is used quite commonly in the last group of the poem. In, ?If i am ever less than a mountain for you definite brothers and sisters,? (15-16) mountain represents a symbol of being strong or supportive. So in other words, she is making a promise to her unborn child that she will be strong and supportive her other children that are living. If she not or ?less than a mountain,? (15) then she says, ?Let the rivers pour over my head? (17) and ?Let the sea take me for a spiller of seas.? (18) I found this to be ironic because she wants the sea to hate her but the sea is nonliving and does not have any feelings. So I came to a conclusion that this line had to be personification in that she wants the sea to punish and dislike her for not promising what she had promised her unborn child.
This poem was written in free verse so there were really no existing musical devices, meter, and pattern. However, I did discover that there were big gaps within this poem and no periods or commas. I believe that these gaps were a contribution to the rhythm. It seems that the poet decide to put these big gaps within this poem so that the reader would pause and think about what has just been read. I found it to be interesting and a clever way to express the emphasis of the pause.
I chose this poem because it deals with the issues of abortion, which is still a great controversy today. I found it to be a gruesome example of how one deals with the guilt and regret. It seems to me that in the end of this poem, even though the poet is making promises to her unborn child, she still will never forget and forgive herself for
The Lost Baby Poem
In Lucille Clifton?s, ?The Lost Baby Poem,? the poet displays a young mother who is full of regret and guilt for her child in which she had lost to death. There are many technical devices that express the poet?s intentions and how it all fits together within this poem. First, I will be discussing what this poem is trying to convey also the denotations and connotations within this poem. Secondly, the poet uses imagery so intensely that one can almost feel the coldness of the winter chill. Lastly, I will discuss how figurative language plays a major role in the young lady?s guilt.
First of all, I noticed that this poem had been written all in lower case letters except for ?Genesee Hill? and ?Canada,? which were names of the place that they had lived. The poet had even written herself as ?i? in lower case in which it symbolizing a great shame upon herself. Then I had broken this poem into three groups in which they have already been divided. I believe the first group represents the process in which the baby in being aborted. ?The time I dropped you almost body down down to meet the waters under the city and run one with the sewage to the sea what did i know about waters rushing back what did i know about drowning or being drowned.? (1-6) I believe that in the poets mind are constant repeating visual images of her baby being drowned. That is why there is repetition with down and drowning. That?s why she is repeating herself ?what did i know,? as a sign of forgiveness.
The second group represents the excuses that the poet makes for her baby not being born as if it was a benefit for the unborn baby. For example, ?You would have been born into winter the year of the disconnected gas and no car,? (7-9) represents how poor the poet was. ?We would have made the thin walk over Genesee Hill into Canada wind,? (9-10) this represents the location in which the area that they had lived. ?To watch you slip like ice into strangers hands.? (11) I believe that the poet is trying to say that if the baby was born then it would probably be given up for adoption, living in an orphanage or just abandoned. ?You would have fallen naked as snow into winter.? (12) Since this was an unprepared problem, the baby would not have enough clothing to wear. ?If you were here i could tell you these and some other things.? By saying this, she means that if you (the baby) were here, you would have lived a miserable life.
The third and final group deals with how she has learned from this situation and how she promises to improve her ways. There are symbols and personification within this last group in which I will be discussing later on in my paper. ?If i am ever less than a mountain for you definite bothers and sisters let the rivers pour over my head let the sea take me for a spiller of seas? (15-19) The poet is making a promise to her unborn child that if she does not treat her living children right (the unborn child?s brothers and sisters), then she wants punishment. ?let black men call me stranger always,? (19-20) means that she wants to stay far away from men. She wants nothing to do with men because that is how this tragic incident happened. Lucille Clifton uses the term ?black men,? because she for one is black and she wants everyone who reads her poem to know that she is black. ?for you never named sake,? represents the unborn child. The poet is saying this because she has changed her lifestyle for her unborn child.
The imagery used within this poem deals with the strengths of the waters as well as the coldness of winter. ?What did I know about waters rushing back, what did i know about drowning or being drowned,? represents the sense of feeling. One could almost feel the power of rushing waters controlling them also feeling the struggle for grasping of air. I can imagine the feeling of discomfort every time I read this line. This also can represent the visual imagery from the poet?s perspective. As mentioned earlier, since she had witnessed this traumatic experience, she constantly sees visual image in her mind of her baby being drowned. ?To watch you slip like ice into strangers? hands you would have fallen naked as snow into winter,? (11-12) is an example of the sense of sight and display the dark colors and feeling of the cold, bleak weather. This can also be represented by the sense of feeling of the frosty cold temperature. When the poet point outs ?winter,? ?fallen naked,? ?disconnected gas,? and ?slip like ice,? I can almost feel the cold numbing my body, especially if I had ?fallen naked.?
Figurative language is used quite commonly in the last group of the poem. In, ?If i am ever less than a mountain for you definite brothers and sisters,? (15-16) mountain represents a symbol of being strong or supportive. So in other words, she is making a promise to her unborn child that she will be strong and supportive her other children that are living. If she not or ?less than a mountain,? (15) then she says, ?Let the rivers pour over my head? (17) and ?Let the sea take me for a spiller of seas.? (18) I found this to be ironic because she wants the sea to hate her but the sea is nonliving and does not have any feelings. So I came to a conclusion that this line had to be personification in that she wants the sea to punish and dislike her for not promising what she had promised her unborn child.
This poem was written in free verse so there were really no existing musical devices, meter, and pattern. However, I did discover that there were big gaps within this poem and no periods or commas. I believe that these gaps were a contribution to the rhythm. It seems that the poet decide to put these big gaps within this poem so that the reader would pause and think about what has just been read. I found it to be interesting and a clever way to express the emphasis of the pause.
I chose this poem because it deals with the issues of abortion, which is still a great controversy today. I found it to be a gruesome example of how one deals with the guilt and regret. It seems to me that in the end of this poem, even though the poet is making promises to her unborn child, she still will never forget and forgive herself for what she had done.