Poetry 1

The two poems I chose were "I am Nobody! Who are you?" by Emily Dickinson and "The Powwow at the End of the World" by Sherman Alexie. "I am Nobody! Who are you?" was short but powerfiul poem. The length of the poem itself creates an image of unimportantance. The speaker in the poem seems to like being a so called "Nobody", but once she realizes there is someone else like her, it feels like she wants to beome a "Sombody", or maybe she already becomes one since she is no longer alone. "The Powwow at the End of the World" takes on a different issue, the enivronment. The speaker in this poem is very angry about the destruction of his homeland and does not want to forgive anyone about it. He knows that he should forgive, everyone tells him to, but the harm done to his homeland can only be forgiven if that harm is undone, and judging by the "Grand Coulee Dam"'s importance, it doesn't look like it will be returning to its orginal state. I think these two poems share a connection because both of the speakers feel like they have no affect on an outcome. In Dickinson's poems, the speaker obviously thinks of herself with little importance--the title says it all, and in Alexie's poem the speaker is less-obvious, but the way he says "on the reservation where I stand alone" conveys a sense of lonleyness and little self-worth. The two poems are very intersting and caught my attention with the length of "I am Nobody! Who are you?" and the parrallel sentence structure in "The Powwow at the Eng of the World".