Shannon Perkins
PIB9LA/Period 6
Bursiek
March 3, 2009
Boiling Blood
In Naomi Shihab Nye’s “Blood” she illustrates/demonstrates the frustration and anger about false labels and war by using metaphors and imagery. Nye describes in her poem, the struggles and frustrations of the false labels put on her people and her culture. Nye describes the struggles by comparing the war that her country is fighting in a metaphor as a “Homeless fig, this tragedy with a terrible root” (18). Nye is using the fig to describe how something so beautiful and majestic can be turned into something ugly, and compares the fig to her situation as something that started out kind of bad, but grew into something even worse.
Another main literary device that Nye uses is imagery. In her poem “Blood” she describes in detail, her flag and what it looks like. This is visual imagery: “I wave the flag of stone and seed, / table mat stitched in blue.” (20-21). She describes the flag as being blue and big because she describes it as being a “table mat stitched in blue.” (21). Also, it shows tactile imagery because she describes the flag as being made of stone and seed.
Naomi Shihab Nye uses a strong tone of confusion, seeking and frustration in her poem, “Blood”. Her tone seems confused because in the end of the poem, she pleads with the air, “Who calls anyone civilized? / Where can the crying heart graze? / What does a true Arab do now?” (27-29). Another tone that she uses is seeking. Nye’s tone seems seeking because she is looking for answers but can’t seem to get them from anywhere or anyone: “I call my father, we talk around the news. / It is too much for him, / neither of his two languages can reach it.” (22-24). Nye’s tone also seems frustrated because she has no one to trust and is trying to hold a good reputation while also trying to stand up for her people and what she believes in. She is also frustrated because nobody will tell her anything because of her ethnicity and heritage....