I need help on analyzing and comparing two poems: The White Man Pressed the Locks by James C. Kilgore and Going Home by Maurice Kenny. I pretty much understand Kilgore's poem, but the other one I sort of understand. But, I need to pick these two apart for literary devices and their importance. This is where I'm stuck. Not good at all with these poems. Anyone have any suggestions?

We are discussing Going Home here. Click on Flat view to see all the posts, and don't hesitate to add further questioins.

[www.emule.com]

Can you post the first poem here and tell us where you get stuck?

The White Man Pressed the Locks by James C. Kilgore

Driving down the concrete artery,
Away from the smoky heart,
Through the darkening, blighted body,
Pausing at varicose veins,
The white man pressed the locks
on all the sedan's doors,
Sped toward the white corpuscles
in the white arms
hugging the black city.


I read those notes on Going Home but I'm having a hard time comparing that poem and this one. And the literary devices and their comparisons between the two is where I'm getting stuck on. There's alot of metaphors in Kilgore's poem but the correlation between the two poems I can't get.

As I see it, both poems are about men travelling out of the city into its surroundings. In Going Home a man who feels at home in the city is going to his childhood home that he no longer feels a part of. In The White Man Pressed the Locks a man who does not feel part of the city goes to his current home in the suburbs where his kind of people live.

That helps alot. I just have to find the literary devices and try to see the similarities and differences that they are used in both poems. I'm a science/math girl----this poetry is whooping my tail. (:

Well, the literary devices in this one are comparing the freeways to the circulation of the body- white corpuscles are there to fight infection. (infection seen as coming from the 'black city.')

pam

thank you everyone for the insight. It's an art to be able to understand and disect poems---which I don't possess.

I don't agree. Of course, some people are better in it than others, just as with math, but with some practise everyone can learn the basics. So, just keep on trying and you will manage!

I'm sci/maths as well, so don't worry. As someone once said "I don't know why women find electric drills so scary, you can damage yourself just as much with a sewing machine" We scientists may take a little longer to get there and we don't add so much waffle and padding to our essays, but we can write quality stuff.

>find the literary devices ...

concrete artery - metaphor? artery means highway?
smoky heart - metaphor for (?) your call
blighted body - hey this is gonna be an extended metaphor, innit.

sedan's doors - our lives?

driving down/blighted body.varicose veins - alliteration?

Can you find any examples of assonance?

And check out the title:
The White Man Pressed the Locks

This conveys to me the image that the white man is in control of the rich part of the city. I would say, the Sedan is a metaphor for power/wealth. The white man locks the blacks out.

"And white arms hugging the black city." I love it. You can really see the lay out of the city. The blacks in the middle and the white ones in the suburbs. What would you call this? Also a metaphor?

It's a very powerful poem. There are hardly any words that don't convey meaning and imagery.