Description
Imagine a reader who categorically dislikes poetry. Choose a poem we have read for class for that person to read, and, addressing your skeptical reader, explain in a short essay the ways in which this particular poem rewards a careful reader. Include a copy of the poem and properly cite it (MLA style). No work-cited page required for this essay.
"Making a Fist"
Making a Fist
by Naomi Shihab Nye
For the first time, on the road north of Tampico,
I felt the life sliding out of me,
a drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear.
I was seven, I lay in the car
watching palm trees swirl a sickening pattern past the glass.
My stomach was a melon split wide inside my skin.
"How do you know if you are going to die?"
I begged my mother.
We had been traveling for days.
With strange confidence she answered,
"When you can no longer make a fist."
Years later I smile to think of that journey,
the borders we must cross separately,
stamped with our unanswerable woes.
I who did not die, who am still living,
still lying in the backseat behind all my questions,
clenching and opening one small hand.
Explanation & Answer
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Making a fist
The title of this poem “making a fist” is used not to depict real fight, one person against
another person but fighting obstacles through this journey of life. The author has used the title to
enable her to tell a story or write a reflection of her hard and tough life. In the poem we see her
write how the journey was harsh and unpleasant. She was seven years old and traveling with her
mother; she says “For the first time, on the road north of Tampico, I felt the life sliding out of me.”
At this young age, she is faced with hardships, and she has reached a ...
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