LITTLE BOY CRYING

● Mervyn Morris
➔ Jamaican
➔ 1937, 85 years old
➔ poet and professor
FIRST STANZA:
● The voice in the open describes the mind and the emotions of the child
● Unable to control his feelings
● Describes the transition from happiness anger and sadness
● Describes his physical appearance
● 3 years old boy
● Doesnt reveal what he done till the end of the poem
● His father (don't know he is his father til the end) slapped him
● Exaggerated sadness (hyperbole)

SECOND STANZA:
● Describes the boy feelings towards his father
● As the child is little he sees his father as a huge monster
● The boy abhorred his father
● He is disappointed because the “ogre” (his father) doesn't feel guilt
● The child imagine different ways to kill his father like in a fantasy world

THIRD STANZA:
● The writer turns the perspective to understand his father
● Hates his child is crying and want to pick him up
● He doesn't do it because he want his kid to learn the lection

FOURTH STANZA:
● Only one line
● Reveals the father anger
● He is angry because he was playing in the rain and he told him not to.

THEMES:
● Universal truth
● Childhood experiences
➔ The little boy experience pain and resentment to his father
● Parent - child relationship
➔ The father seems to be strict and firm but really he loves his son but
although he loves him won't let him do what he wants.
● Parenting
➔ The father want to be a good parent
➔ You can see the lessons the father wants his son to learn
➔ He uses physical punishment so that he learns
GLOSSARY:
● CORTORTIN: moving
● SPITE: rencor (desire to hurt someone)
● METAMORPHOSED: changed
● HOWLS: aullido
● HYPERBOLE: exaggeration
● ANGLING: measuring
● AGRE TOWERS: monster, tall
● GRIM GIANT: sad
● COLOSSAL: very big
● PIT: in the ground
● ABHORRED: hate
● FRAME: body

RISING FIVE
● Norman Nicholson
➔ English
➔ 1914-1987

FIRST STANZA:
● The child is the narrator
● Relates the boy behavior and his desire to grow up
➔ This represents people desire to grow thinking that being bigger will
give them maturity
● Describes him physically and says he is very vibrant and full of life
● Explain how the child says he is not four, he is rising five
● Speaks about the tentative nature of life and aging (envejecimiento)

SECOND STANZA:
● They are in the field and see how everything changes and moves
● This feeling is emphasized through the poet’s use of alliteration in the “b” and
“s” sounds
● The world is changing as the boy
● The author explains how humans and nature change and go through the
"seasons"

THIRD STANZA:
● The author don't talk about the boy but describes the sky
● He speaks about the change in the sky and the setting of the sun
● This is an allusion of death and darkness that he will talk at the end
● This boy makes you think of the meaning of being alive and that it isn't forever
 ● Anging is something good for the kid but not for the parents or the person is
taking care of him

FOURTH STANZA:
● Explains the seasons and that everything old is replaced by the new
● It says that we are not capable of valuing youth and we only want to grow
● We only appreciate in the moment without being able to see beyond and
appreciate the beauty of each moment
● We do not live moment to moment since we are rooted in the past or thinking
about the future and we do not know how to see things well.

OVERALL VIEW - THEMES:

● It shows how the perspective of life changes depending on age
● The main theme of the poem is the fact that people are always looking to the
future, and seldom look at their present.
● He begins by talking to himself as a child and his environment where he only
wants to grow in a way
● By the end of the poem he sees living not as life but as “rising death.”

GLOSSARY:
● SPECTACLES: glasses
● BRIM: borde
● BUCKLE: broche
● DISSECTED: cut

MULEBRITY
● Sujata Bhatt
➔ indian
➔ 1956

LINES 1-4:
● Nostalgic tone
● Indian girl raising the dung of a cow
● Raising the dung is important since it carries the energy of the house as a fuel
and also in a religious way
● The author creates a powerful environment and names an Indian goddess for
this

LINES 5-9:
● Describes the girl physical appearances and movements wich stay in the
speaker mind
● This waist and the hands represent the idea of femininity and beauty
● The poet creates a juxtaposition between different kinds of smells
 ● Sujata Bhatt emigrated from India, and her feelings of nostalgia are clearly
shown here
● The repetition of words creates a mix effect of words, memories and feelings

LINES 10-13:
● Talks again the cow dung, as this is frequent in the girl life
● The poetess make focus on the smells and the memories it brings
● He wants to appreciate the girl as she is and value her for her job

LINES 14-18:
● He sees a beauty in her that he cannot see elsewhere since he sees her
perfect doing a job as unpleasant as collecting dung
● The femininity of the girl make her seem as a strong person
● He can see her shining power through her cheekbones
● She does her job because she has to and not because she is not so feminine,
it makes her less beautiful and powerful

OVERVIEW:
● “Mulebrity” means womanhood
● Represents being a woman or the characteristics of woman nature
● Sujata is talking about her childhood remembering when she saw a girl
collecting cow dung
● The poem is about the strength of a woman and how the strength of nature
filters even in the most unpleasant jobs

THEMES:
● Femininity and womanhood
➔ Strong woman
➔ Unashamed to her job
➔ Brings the energy to her house
➔ The prosperity of the woman from working from something unpleasant
rising strong and shining
● The power of memory
➔ The poet repeats the phrase “I have thought so much….” , it means
that she is not willing to forget this girl that she saw and marked her a
long time ago
● Dignity of labour
➔ The girl does this job happily as she is the "strength" of her house.
➔ You can't imagine that he's raising shit because of the happy face he
has

TONE AND MOOD (overall feeling the reader gets after reading the poem):
● Pensative mood
● Nostalgic tone
STYLE AND STRUCTURE:
● Use of free verse
● The poem goes bringing a fall of memories
● The continuous sentence without a pause (enjambment) is significant as it
recounts a long string of associated memories stored by the poet
● Share her thoughts

GLOSSARY:
● SYNECDOCHE: a part that signifies a hole
● CROW: cuervo
● MULEBRITY: womanhood
● ANAPHORA: repetition of a word a the beginning of different lines

CAGED BIRD
● Maya Angelou
➔ 1928 - 2014
➔ American
➔ Activist, author, actress, screenwriter, dancer and poetess

FIRST STANZA:
● Describes a free bird who choose where to go
● Then this juxtapose to the caged bird problems
● The poetess reflects the difference between the bird that is in the cage and its
oppressions with the privileges of the free bird.
● Gives the reader an opportunity to admire nature describing the sky and
understand the nature of a free bird

SECOND STANZA:
● The second stanza talks about the caged bird
● She uses the metaphor "bars of rage” to explain the suffering and oppression
of the caged bird
● It cannot fly or stretch as it is "tethered" and this impedes its own nature
● He has nothing left to do but sing his pain and wrath
● The caged bird cannot appreciate the sky as the free bird
● From the first stanza to the second the tone changes to a much dark one

THIRD STANZA:
● The bird sings things that I never truly experience, but it does not prevent it
from desiring freedom.
● Although he has never experienced it, the author implies that the bird knows
its true nature and what it was created for.
● Here, the speaker reveals that his cry for freedom is “heard on the distant hill”.
This illustrates the author's fight for freedom in the form of equality.
 ● His screams are heard as a distant noise

FOURTH STANZA:
● The free bird says that he is the owner of the sky and can enjoy nature
● Gives the reader a sense of ecstasy and thrill
● The breeze makes the leaves of the trees move as it sigh (personification)

FIFTH STANZA:
● In stark contrast to the free bird, the caged bird
● The caged bird "stands on the grave of dreams." He's never going to be able
to enjoy the things the free bird does.
● The caged bird, “stands on the grave of dreams” (metaphor). This reveals the
author’s feelings about her own dreams.
● The lost dreams of the woman are revealed since she is black and those who
have the opportunities are white
● Discrimination and Racism made up her cage
● It has a more terrifying tone since its songs become nightmares

SIXTH STANZA:
● She feels that black Americans wrote and sang and danced and cried out for
the freedom they deserved, but they were only heard as a distant voice.
● The caged bird represents the woman who screams and cries out for her
freedom within the cage of oppression

GENERAL VIEW:
● Celebration of African American resilience and dignity.
● Evokes the pain and rage of one who is oppressed by contrasting it with the
carefree and willful ignorance of one who is free.

GLOSSARY:
● TRILL: to produce a quavering or warbling sound.
● FEARFUL: feeling or showing fear or anxiety.