How I Got That Name Analysis

"How I Got That Name" is a poem written in four stanzas in a form of poetry called free verse. Free verse is pretty much what it sounds like: a poetic style that doesn't stick to any regular meter...

The speaker of this poem is called "Marilyn Mei Ling Chin." Now, you may have noticed that the author of the poem is called "Marilyn Chin." (If you did, way to be awake out there, Shmoopers.) It's...

Given that this is a poem about the immigrant experience, it's no wonder that setting is pretty important. And the two main settings that the poem evokes are China and America. References to "Angel...

Given that this is a poem written in free verse, it has a very conversational ring to it. Not only that, but the language is simple and clear. It sounds like our friend is just chatting to us. Line...

"How I Got That Name: An Essay on Assimilation" is a title that tells us exactly what Chin's poem is about. It's a poem about how the speaker went from being "Mei Ling" to "Marilyn." The title's em...

We can tell that this is a poem written by Marilyn Chin because the poem begins with her stating her name. Phew, that was easy. But even if we didn't have the name in the first line, there are othe...

This isn't a very difficult poem to understand. For one thing, its title, "How I Got That Name," tells us pretty much exactly what the poem is about. It's also a poem that's easy to follow because...

In addition to writing poetry, Marilyn Chin also translates Chinese and Japanese poetry into English. (Source.) You can take a class from Marilyn Chin at San Diego State University. She's on the fa...

This poem is so G-rated, our six-year-old kid brother could read it. There isn't anything in the poem that we'd need to censor. Sex is there, but it's there in a very vague way. It's hinted at in t...

William Carlos Williams, "The Red Wheelbarrow" (51)John Berryman, "Dream Song 14" (57) Herman Melville, Moby-Dick ("the white whale") (88)Paperson (9): "Paper son" was a name used for Chinese...