Text Analysis Poems (Essay Sample)

Name
Instructor
Subject
Date
Appreciating and Enjoying Life in Jane Kenyon’s “Otherwise,” Cecilia Woloch’s “Slow Children at Play,” and Geraldine Connolly’s “The Summer I was Sixteen.”
It is amazing how people take for granted the little gifts of life, such as being able to wake up in the morning, turning on your side and staring into the eyes of your loved ones, or having the time to play. While all these things appear usual and a given to most people, there are those who can no longer wake up because they are dead, those who cannot stare into the eyes of their loved ones because they are either not in this life or have divorced, and those who cannot play because they are incapacitated with sickness. It is important, therefore, to appreciate the little things that one can get out of life. Not everyone can enjoy the privileges that one enjoys but without appreciation. The three poems, “Slow Children at Play” by Cecilia Woloch, “Otherwise” by Jane Kenyon, and “The Summer I Was Sixteen” by Geraldine Connolly portrays the beauty of life and the need to take pleasure out of it while it is possible to do so, for there will come a time when it will be impossible.
Cecilia Woloch’s “Slow Children at Play” portrays the contrast between the things that children and adults take their time to do. As the poem’s title suggests, children take their time playing. The author writes that while the quick children have gone inside having been called by their mothers to hurry up, the slow ones take their time to “marking off/ paths between fireflies, making soft little sounds with their mouths” (Woloch 4-5). The behavior of slow children suggests being able to immerse oneself in something without regard to time. Being conscious of the passing of time only draws one’s attention to the worries of life and the many responsibilities that awaits one. Children are able to take the most of what they do, and therefore enjoy life most, because they don’t care about time. Whatever they do, they do it with innocent abandon and such fervency that the passing of time cannot rob them of their enjoyment. Geraldine Connolly echoes a similar idea in “The Summer I Was Sixteen” in her portrayal of teenagers having fun. While adults may be restrained by propriety and self-control when having fun, teenagers do it with innocent and envious abandon. Enjoying life, Connolly implies, is being able to forget all worries and immersing oneself, even if briefly, in whatever in pleasure. The first stanza in “The Summer I Was Sixteen” talks about teenagers taking a swim, and Connolly writes that they “plunged, screaming, into a mirage of bubbles” (3). The act of plunging into a swimming pool suggests doing something without caution. The recklessness of the teenagers is part of fun; they are uninhibited by concerns of any danger, such as hitting a sharp object. The poem’s message is not about being reckless, but having a carefree spirit, like that of teenagers, as a way of enjoying the most of life.
The title of “The Summer I Was Sixteen,” in this regard, is in some way a regretful remembrance of a time long gone, when the narrator was a teenager. The narrator is remembering with a mixture of nostalgia and regret a time that cannot be relived again. The knowledge that one lives his or life once, without the chance of rewinding the clock of aging, reinforces the thematic concerns of the three poems; that one ought to enjoy as much as possible life’s gifts, however small they are, because there will be a time when it would be too late to enjoy them. Jane Kenyon’s “Otherwise” takes this consciousness a notch higher by suggesting that even getting out of bed is a gift worth celebrating because it could have been otherwise- being dead and not alive to enjoy the waking up every morning. Kenyon observes that even routine acts like eating “Sweet, milk, ripe, flawless peach (Kenyon 5-7), is a blessing that should be appreciated. Dead people cannot wake up to see the glory of dawn; dead people cannot enjoy the taste of sweet milk or ripe peach. Woloch’s “Slow Children at Play” views pleasure as something that person can be robbed of by old age and responsibilities. The lines, “And their slow others flickering,pale in the dusk,” (Connolly 6-7), has double meaning, and in both cases referring to the passage of time as an hindrance to taking pleasure in life. In the first instance, the literal reference to dusk implies that parents/adults enjoy life less because they are worried of being late with other tasks. It is worth noting that the mothers are slow in their tasks, while the children are slow in their play. This implies that adults spend most of their time being concerned about life’s problems, while children, unmindful of any worries, spend their time enjoying life. The second interpretation of dusk is old age, when adults are slow and lack the energy to play like children.
The coming of old age is the moment that Jane Kenyon says could be “otherwise,” a time when it is impossible to enjoy life. In this case, the message in Connolly’s “Slow Children at Play” from Kenyon’s perspective is that like children, one should take the time to enjoy life because it could otherwise- old age and responsibilities will take it away. In fact, Kenyon predicts this moment when it will be “otherwise” either as a result of old age, sickness or death in the last lines of the last stanza. As the narrator looks forward with plans for another day, as she awaits tomorrow with plans of what to do, she understands that “One day it will be otherwise,” (Kenyon 25-26). Looking ahead in time to a period when even carrying out routine activities like be...