Poem Post 1

4. A famous classical poet has said that the aim of literature is to teach and to delight. In the work one poet you have studied, examine some poems where both of these aims ( instruction and something that pleases the reader ) have been included, and show how that has achieved.

For the poem “ Blood”. In order to know the aim of this poem, first thing is to know the background information of this poem. This poem was written after the 911 by Naomi Shihab Nye. So the aim of this poem is to clear that not all Arabs are bad, not all of them are violent.

In the first line of the first stanza, the author wrote down that “ A true Arab knows how to catch a fly in his hands.” The “ A true Arab” was repeated in the poem for several times. From the background information part, we know that the aim of this poem is to dissolve the misunderstandings from public on the Arabs. So the word “ true Arab” highlighted the different actions or minds between a true Arab and some bad impressions from publics toward on Arabs. Then at the second to fourth line in the first stanza, the author talked about how did her father catch the fly and then released it. And also the release part was a hint to the readers that a true Arabs not only knows how to catch a fly but also after catch it, they would release them back to nature.

And then in the second stanza author only talked about how true Arabs trust in their beliefs. But also at the third line of this stanza, “ I changed these to fit the occasion.” This line also let the readers found a little bit difference between the father and daughter. Father abided the tradition, but the daughter did not really follow the tradition.

Moreover the third stanza, it talked about one girl who went to author’s home in order to know what did one true Arab look like. But the author rejected this request because under the author’s young mind, there’s no difference between everyone, why did this girl want to find true Arab. So the third stanza also passed the readers a real important information that there’s no real difference between each racial, all the characteristics were added by humans. Then in the last two lines of this stanza, the father told the author that a true Arab would give back their names to the sky, and author also spoke out this opinion, and this is corespond with the topic, Blood, even though the author was not a full Arabian, but because of the blood, she is still a Arabian and hold the identity of a true Arabian.

Then in the fourth stanza, the author suddenly read one death of a Palestinian, which shocked the author and also let author begin to think what should she do. In this stanza, there’s no description of true Arabs, but instead of that, the author talked “ Homeless fig, this tragedy with a terrible root is too big for them.” In this line, I interpret that the homeless fig is used to describe the Arab people who stayed in foreign, and the author showed her worry toward the unknown Palestinian, but also the next sentence” What flg can we wave?” It is a question that asks the author herself, but also it’s a question to ask us, as readers, as an individual in the whole community, when we met the tragedy, what should we do. The author wanted to use the death of the Palestinian to remind the public that when we met the disaster, first thing should be united, not to blame on each other at first.

The last stanza author talked about her confusion, in the last three lines, the author used three questions: “Who calls anyone civilized? Where can the crying heart graze? What does a true Arab do now?”  These three questions sound like the shout, but also like a cry from the whole community of Arabs. What should they do, only because of tiny group of Arab did something wrong and the public blame on the whole community, so I would interpret this whole poem as a clarification from the Arabs to the whole world that Arabs are not violent, not all of them are terrorists, the true Arabs love the life, they were eager for peacefullness and also wanted to be treated equally.