Poetry Devices

Device 1: “Dusting” by Julia Alvarez: Metaphor

My name was swallowed in the towel

with which she jeweled the table tops.

The grain surfaced in the oak

and the pine grew luminous.

But I refused with every mark

to be like her, anonymous. (Alvarez 13-18)

      There are a few different metaphors that can be taken from these few lines, and I found them extremely fascinating and inspirational so I will share them all with you. 

        

      We see the young girl signing her name around the house, and the mother wiping it away as she does her daily work. This is an example of a metaphor for a different generation of women because we see that the mother thinks that a women’s place should be in the house cleaning, cooking and serving. We also see the next generation; the little girl wanting to make a name for herself and wanting to be a successful part of the public society.

      Another way these lines can be interpreted into a metaphor is if you see the mother as a poet. The artist or poet must step back and vanish into their work. The poem is what matters, not the writer’s name. The artist must also be like the little girl in the sense that they must have aspiration and determination to picture success and create a place in society for themselves.

      I selected these lines and these metaphors because they spoke to me personally. I found the poem really well written and I thought that it was really cool that you could get so many different meanings and metaphors out of a few lines.

Device 2: “First Muse” by Julia Alvarez: Simile

For months I suffered from bad writer's-block,

which I envisioned, not as a blank page,

but as a literary border guard

turning me back to Spanish on each line. (Alvarez 17-20)

      In these lines Alvarez uses a simile to compare her bad writers block to a literary border guard. I chose this device because it sums up what the whole poem is about. Alvarez was filled with doubt when she was told that one could not write poetry unless English was their native language. This stunted her thinking and she let this comment consume her and block her out like a “literary border guard.” (Alvarez 19) Later she comes to the realization that it simple isn’t true, and overcame her writers block.  She discovered that anyone is able to write poetry no matter where you are from.