Of summer ..

Hey TahaT11n, Here's the analysis.

The poem "Of Summer" written by TahaT11n is a snap-shot of the modern day summer experience. The children are inside, the heat is overwhelming, and everything is dripping from the boiling temperatures. This poem exemplifies the art of repetition, using it to express the heatwaves and provide a mirror for the reader of what that heat feels like through that repetition. It uses repetition in rhyme, including both slant and traditional rhyme. It also uses refrains, although the poem employs a new sense of refrain harkening more towards the way that Elizabeth Bishop uses it, keeping the same idea, but gravitating towards different words. The poem also uses onomatopoeia to create noise and sound for the reader which has double meanings throughout the poem.

The main way in which TahaT11n created a sense of heat in this poem is through the repetition of the line "Swaying in the swing of summer" which exemplifies heat through a few ways. First, the line itself has repetition within it, with the alliteration of the "s" sound which provides the reader with a sss she follows through the poem. The swing of summer can mean a lot of things, and most of the time, it means that something in particular is in "full swing" or in the middle of it's pique. For many people, the height of summer usually refers to heat, because it's the hottest season of the year. The summer solstice is the longest day of the year, so swing of summer, naturally can indicate the heat of summer. This also is a refrain in the poem because while the poem continues, what the swing is indicating changes. It's a vague enough phrase to be a good refrain and allow the alteration of its meaning despite the lack of alteration of it's words. However it is not the only part of the poem which is refrained.

Another refrain is the last line of the first stanza, "summer sweats in silence" which is altered between the two refrains. The reason that the refrain is altered is that the words are still nearby, but with the new order, it creates an echo of the original meaning, sort of like a mirage of the refrain, which provides the reader with another sense of heat as mirages are usually an indication of heat altering the way we see the world. It is imagery through word manipulation.

Another use of imagery is in what the body of the stanzas speak about. The mention of the mango leaves reinforces the sense of heat. Mango trees live in tropic areas, and flower and fruit during the winter months of those sections of the world because it is cooler, and allows them to do so. During the summer, if it gets too hot, Mango trees can lose their leaves, but otherwise, they hold onto them as the tropic trees tend to do. While there may be minimal leaves falling, for the most part, they will stay in tact. The mention of leaves falling in this poem indicates that there might be more heat than usual, as it becomes something noteworthy for the poem. This imagery supports the heat of the poem and provides the reader with a clear image to grasp onto as we begin the journey down the typical summer in this area of the world.

Mangos, in general, are a refreshing succulent fruit, a sweet treat, but this poem doesn't present the summer as something sweet. Instead, it presents the summer as something dirty and dehydrating. One of the other images that best exemplifies this is the use of the fly. Flies in general are considered useless, dirty pests, and the hard imagery that is used surrounding the fly such as the "steel rails" and the noises of the language like "shock" and "buzz" indicates the more electric sense of the words rather than the soft gentle heat of before. This also proceeds our broken refrain which shows the other destitutes of the summer heat by creating this half image of how the words should go using "again" at the end of the second to last line, instead of the end of the last line, moving it up as a mirage will shuffle the images and stretch them.

Another way that this poem imposes a negative view of the summer heat is in the rhyming pattern. It's scattered throughout the poem, with the second stanza barely having any rhyming at all, while the last stanza is nearly entirely rhymed. This creates a warped sense of sound for the reader, making it hard to get through because of the constant change and break in pattern. The difficulty of finding a pattern provides the reader with a similar difficulty as it would be to speak and breathe in a hot environment. But the poem isn't hard to pronounce, it doesn't drag on the tongue, so much as make the brain think, and with the slant rhymes like "summer" and "everywhere" and even "somewhere" it provides the reader with a hint of a rhyme without the true thing for a long time. It creates a sense of waiting, like the poet is teasing the reader with the rhyme, despite how rare it seems to be.

This poem doesn't just talk about heat though, it's a commentary on the heat during the dead of summer, and why that summer is dead. The repeated use of "Hushed" shows that during all this heat, it's not just the humans that are unwilling to move, unwilling to come out and play as the speaker passes through an empty park, but everything. Even the noise of the pesky fly is hushed by this heat. It helps that the hush always precedes the end stanza refrain which talks about not just people, not just animals, but "summer sweats" which personifies summer into something that can't stand its own heat. By the time the reader gets down to "I pass by an empty park," it is no wonder why the park is empty, it's too hot to be outside in this misery. This final first line refrain of "swaying in the swing of summer" becomes a tease on the idea of a park swing, and the slight breeze that's been playing with the mango leaves, and dancing away the fly.

This poem teases that the heat will go away with the breeze, using words like "shock" twice in a row, and talking about the "weather" like somehow it's going to change, like it's an imposing force that means more than just the heat. It makes me wonder if maybe the summer is more than just about the heat in the poem, but perhaps, also hurricanes. Perhaps this heat is from some monstrous storm that will wash it away. This idea works into the poem with the way the world will hush, and hinting lines like "a pale noise occurs" which don't quite fit with the rest of the poem. It's like a foreshadowing of a looming force. In the end, that is what summer is about for many tropic areas however, at any time tropic storms can swing up from the coasts and engulf the happy warm life in rain and winds. We see this in the "little sand" which is beat up from the coats by these storms.

In total, "Of Summer" is a poem focused on the heat, with a haunting after-image of a potential hurricane in the mix. It is a capturing of the image of summer in the tropics, and all of the dangers it entails, from heat exhaustion, to the reality that everything is trapped in this world together, all of it is affected by the belt of the equator just the same, even the summer is sweating, and summer is a human indicator of the hottest time of the year. The poet plays with language using refrains, the soft "s" sounds, and the harsh crass words like "steel" that clip themselves with t and hard "e" to create a sense of the range of what is affected by the heat. Using refrains, the poet develops a sense of mirage, and weight, exposing the slight dualities of "the swing of summer" through the body of the stanzas, and provides a fitting cap to the poem commenting on the ways that these summers can be empty, despite sounding wonderful in the middle of winter.

[gimmie a shout after you read this and I'll tell you why/how/what all that stuff.]

Hey it's Mahvash here! Hope you are doing fine. I really liked this poem. And the use of imagery was amazing, seriously. I felt as if I was just witnessing all the scenes. I like summers a lot. My most favorite line in this poem is "Now summer sweats in Silence". You have done a really great job.

But I think you need to concentrate on capitalization. This will make your poem more beautiful.

Anyways, overall the poem is very lovely. Keep up this good work.

'Allo Taha c:

I like the feel of this a lot! It almost gives off a sleepy and subdued feel, venturing to almost nostalgic, which again, I like. The poem seems to widen its view at each stanza, going from plant to insect, to human. Whether this was intended or not, it was one of the things I noticed while reading.

The simplicity of the writing style is nice, but then it almost seems to contradict with the vague language used. A lot of poems I've read have done something similar to this and I honestly like it quite a bit. I would watch your grammar here, a few words seem to be missing in various places. Other than that, keep up the good writing! c:

this is good just got to work on capatalizing i guess and stuff guh to tired to do a review just gonna say it pretty good keep writing