I Am Offering this Poem Analysis

"I Am Offering this Poem" is an ode, written in free verse. Great, but what the heck does any of that mean? Well, an ode is a poem that's written to, or about, a specific person (or thing). It's a...

Before we dive in here, we should point out two things. Thing 1: It's never a good idea to confuse a poem's speaker with the poet him- or herself. What if the poet is writing in the voice of a made...

The setting of this poem is both very intimate and very vast. On the one hand, the poem evokes the intimate things we associate with a cozy home: a fire, "yellow corn," socks, and of course a cabin...

This poem has an intimate, conversational tone to it. It mentions everyday things—like socks and coats and houses—and it uses language that's simple and conversational. It's as if the speaker i...

The title of this poem does a whole bunch of things at once. First up, it tells us that this is a poem about poetry (the words "this Poem" are in the title, after all). It announces that this poem...

We can recognize Jimmy Santiago Baca's poetry through the language that he uses. Baca's a self-taught poet. He didn't go to regular school and thus learned to read and write on his own—pretty imp...

This is a pretty straightforward poem. The language is clear and simple, the ideas are easy to follow, and, well, it's short. It only gets a little bit knotty when the speaker uses the complicated...

Did you know that Jimmy Santiago Baca spent five years in prison? That didn't stop him from becoming a great poet, though. In fact, he learned to read and write while he was in prison. (Source.) Ho...

Even though this is a poem written by a lover to his beloved, we won't find any raunchy goings-on here. Instead, we'll find lots of coats and socks and scarves. So… maybe coats and socks and scar...

Hogan (18): a traditional Native American Navajo house