How do these love poems, “Bleecker Street, Summer” and “The Fist,” compare with other love poems you’ve read?
Walcott’s poems “Bleecker Street, Summer” and “The Fist” compare to other love poems I’ve read because it revolved around the literary device of imagery. Edith Wharton’s “Terminus ” also included imagery, you could imagine how the person looks, what’s going on, you could have a daydream about the setting. It seems like a common theme among all these romantic poems deal with the lovers being distant from each other. The speaker is always reciting the lovely moments in the past tense and reminiscing on those great times. The speaker is always dreaming of the past, in “The Fist”, the speaker says, ” But this has moved past love to mania” to convey that this romance has happened in the past.
I agree that Walcott uses very descriptive imagery to capture his inner emotions and love for the subject. I would like to add on that compared to other love poems that speak about love, the joyous feeling of love, or about the lovers, his poems are about the pain of love. Walcott describes Bleecker Street with beautiful descriptions of the weather and the surrounding environment, but he also longs for his hometown. In “The Fist”, his pain is even more distinct. Love is a painful thing, it can sometimes feel like a heart attack, as he describes the fist clenching and loosening around the heart. The fist also symbolizes the pain of love and how it is like a madman that is beyond reasonable.
I liked how you pointed out the use of imagery in all of these poems. By using imagery in literature, authors provide a descriptive language so that readers are able to better imagine the world of the piece of literature. Like you said, in Wharton’s poem “Terminus”, we as readers are able to have an idea of the characters’ appearances and the settings of the story. In other words, it is similar to putting ourselves in the shoes of the characters and being there to experience with them throughout the story.
I agree with your comments about “The Fist” by Walcott. In his poem, he does describe love as a painful thing that attacks people like a heart attack. He clearly describes the feelings of heartbreak but I believe that it symbolizes the feelings of grief. In a way, his last sentence of the poem represents his way of getting over heartbreak, which is an important part that was not discussed.
I agree with your comment on how Walcott effectively uses imagery to paint a vivid picture for readers and how this is common throughout other poems. In Bleeker Street, Summer, Walcott somewhat glorifies Manhattan, but shows that his hometown is what he truly misses. While in The Fist, Walcott uses more metaphoric imagery and displays how love’s pain is like a fist clenching on his heart.