Analysis of poems

 In my class I was signed to analyze 2 poems which are “Ode to Pork” and “I too, sing America”.

1. Ode to Pork

This poem was made by the man called Kevin Young. He is a director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and culture.

1. I wouldn’t be here
2. without you. Without you
3. I’d be umpteen
4. pounds lighter & a lot
5. less alive. You stuck
6. round my ribs even
7. when I treated you like a dog
8. dirty, I dare not eat.
9. I know you’re the blues
10. because loving you
11. may kill me–but still you
12. rock me down slow
13. as hamhocks on the stove.
14. Anyway you come
15. fried, cubed, burnt
16. to within one inch
17. of your life I love. Babe,
18. I revere your every
19. Nickname—bacon, chitlin,
20. crackling, sin.
21. Some call you murder,
22. shame’s stepsister–
23. then dress you up
24. & declare you white
25. & healthy, but you always
26. come back, sauced, to me.
27. Adam himself gave up
28. a rib to see yours
29. piled pink beside him.
30. Your heaven is the only one
31. worth wanting–
32. You keep me all night
33. cursing your four-
34. letter name, the next
35. begging for you again.

© Kevin Young. Dear Darkness: Poems. New York: Knopf (2010).

In this poem, the author uses personification, simile, metaphor. Which shows how much he loves eating meat. Also the looks of the poet obviously shows how much he love to eat.

On the other hand in this poem we can see some allusions from the Bible. “Adam himself gave up a rib” is the action that god did to make a woman, Eve.

Overall this poem was fun to read and fun to analyze.

2. I too, Sing America

This poem was made by man called Langston Hughes (1902-1967). He witnessed America’s advancement of equal rights for minorities during the course of his lifetime. Despite the fact that slavery had been ended years before Hughes was born, he was subjected to overt bigotry and oppression because he was Black. He frequently depicts this injustice in his writings and in his poems he revels against the establishment and extols the virtues of his fellow African Americans.

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.

Besides, 
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—

I, too, am America.

From The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, published by Knopf and Vintage Books. Copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated.

In this poem he uses the literary technique of alliteration, allusion, and enjambment. 

We can see that he wants to appeal his justice as a African American in the US. It is obviously stated in stanza 1 and 5 which is the part “I, too, sing America.” and “I,too, am America”, which is also using the literary technique called coda.