March 25, 2016

Nicolas Casadiego

Unit 2: Poetry Activity 1: Imagery and Symbolism

THE WISDOM OF SHELLEY
By: George Elliott Clarke

Throughout the poem The Wisdom of Shelley, George Elliot Clarke tells us the story of her abusive
father, and how it affected him. He uses sarcastic and ironic gestures with words like graceful and
swooned to lighten the mood and depict the violence that was actually occurring. This poem represents
how one person can hurt you and also make you feel like the most important person in the world. In the
authors case, he saw violence as he grew up and seeing how much destruction one person can bring to
their loved ones world is enough for the author to think twice about trying love again with someone who
has decimated their idea of love. Love is supposed to be amazing, or at least, with the right person, it is.
The first image I use is a representation of a blizzard with the words FIVE WINTERS written across
it. I chose this image because it shows how beautiful and cold winter is, how it doesnt care whether you
like it or not because its going to make your bones hurt. This image is also meant to represent how long
this significant other the author talks about takes in order to finally confess their true love. When moving
down to the two pictures down the left side, you see a woman laying down on a couch who seems to have
been swooned and a tree is broken up into the four seasons. When looking at the picture of the tree with the
four seasons, it represents all the various types of poems the authors significant other brought to the
author when trying to profess their true love for him. The words Litterin the Table just refer to the
overflowing amount of letters put on the table, showing more than just love, but a bit of obsession. The
picture of the woman says loved her which references to the lines of the poem I heard pa tell ma, how
much and much he, loved loved loved her, and I saw his fist, fall so gracefully, against her cheek, she
swooned., which emphasized the loved her part, resembling lost which was lost but never forgotten. I
used this picture because in the poem George uses the words gracefully and swooned in order to make
the issue of physical violence seem as if his father just seduced his mom with a swift brush of her cheek
with his hand, making it seem like she fainted from being wooed. The fountain above the brazen bulls
represent how torturing the letters must have been to read and how tempting it mustve been to go back to
someone whose words show so much meaning and passion, but are emptier than a bag of potato chips.
Being that brazen bulls were a torture device, the same goes for how powerful and bold every single word
of the various letters must have been equal as weakening as a stab to the heart. Ive seen love die, is what
I think is the authors way of saying, my father loved my mom so much he killed her when he physically
abused her. The picture shows how we will still go out of our way to love those around us, but in some
cases we dont cherish them as much as we love them, resulting in graceful fists which swoon, everyone,
we love around us. The last picture I use was a picture of a rose with thorns, with a big X on it. The
picture refers to how in life, the most beautiful people can come disguised with innocence when in reality
theyre carrying roses ready to cause you pain just like words do as well. The X represents people just like
the rose because just like roses, people have thorns and their words can be just as many lies as they can be
truths. The X is just a letter, a variable, therefore representing that any person can hurt you just as much
as the authors significant other has hurt them, and how damaged mentally the authors dad left them.
Leaving them inadequate enough to give people second chances because theyre scared of what the
consequences love can have, but if we dont experience them then how would we know what to look for
and what to avoid? Love is a rollercoaster that likes to go in the direction of all ten dimensions, leaving
you at the loss but at the same time with the full grasp of the entire universe.

Works Cited:

"George Elliott Clarke: Poems." Canadian Poetry Online. Web. 25 Mar. 2016.