In the poem “Song of Myself” by Walt Whitman he goes through several different phases that basically talk about himself, his connection to nature, and his religion and relationship with God. In this journey of self-discovery, Whitman refers to himself and others as “I” throughout and he talks about others,...

Time is a common theme in poems. Its immutable presence is able to at once bring one poem to lament lost time while another poem to beatify it because of the love they had for another person. The three poems this essay will discuss are A.E. Houseman’s To An Athlete...

A. E. Housman's “To an Athlete Dying Young” is what may be called a “consistent” poem. It has a message to convey, the message is directed to the athlete of the title, and the poem is itself a variation on congratulations to any athlete who performs well. This element is...

Gary Soto’s Saturday at the Canal and How Things Work each feature a different perspective on a surprisingly related theme. Similarly, the tones of the poems are similar, while their syntactic structures are very different. The former poem features a pessimistic and wishful point of view, one in which dreams...

Louise Erdrich’s Indian Boarding School: The Runaways is a poem that describes certain aspects of freedom and a wish to escape, as experienced by young girls attempting to leave a boarding school. Not only does the poem appear to describe a present desire for freedom, but it also contains meditations...