A Poetry Explication of 'A Blessing' by James Wright
A poetry explication essay is a considerably short analysis describing the probable meanings and associations of the images, words, and other units making up a poem. It comprises of a line-by-line revelation of the meanings of the piece of poetry as it develops right from the start to the end. The present paper provides an explication essay of 'A blessing' by James Wright.
An Analysis of 'A Blessing' by James Wright
In the poem by James Wright, 'A Blessing,' provides an analysis of the association between humans and nature using a descriptive elucidation of a happenstance between his friend, himself, and the two Indian ponies. James Wright starts off by expositing a simple story on a couple of Indian ponies in a pasture, 'just of the highway to Rochester, Minesota,' indicating that the car has pulled off the road. As the poem endures, the use of figurative language helps in conveying the emotional depth of the speaker; however, shows a great ease of following. The speaker does a comparison of the pony world and human, and from his point of view, the ponies provide an insight into the emotions of shyness, happiness, love, and loneliness in the human world. Although the general mood of the poetic piece is one of reverential awe and happiness, a current loneliness in the artwork is suggestive of the gift ephemeral joy as being all too rare. Besides, the gift in itself demands some level of courage since the speaker had to first level the trodden path and get on an expedition into an unaccustomed territory.
The Revelation of the Speaker
A slander black-and-white mare-one of the ponies, nuzzles the hand of the speaker giving an opportunity for the human to 'caress' her ear. In the poetic piece by James, the last three lines express the speaker's sudden revelation by using a rather enigmatic image, whereby he outlines that, "Suddenly I realize / That if I stepped out of my body I would break / Into blossom." The events that transpired in that pasture were hardly unexplainable, such that the poet resorted to use words in a rather unusual and unexpected manner in expressing the feelings of the speaker regarding the experience. In this piece, he displays that despite the ability of humans to associate and interact with the animals, humans do not have the capability of joining them-evident in his statement of inability to step out of the human body and break into blossom.
The Significance of Images in 'A Blessing'
In this explication of 'A blessing' by James Wright, the most significant images are the ponies that come to welcome the speaker, the touch of the pony by the speaker-in a manner so loving that in the speaker's imagination point to it being a girl, and the speaker's feeling of blossoming in the event he stepped out of his body. The personification of the two Indian ponies through comparison with human beings, majorly through emotional elucidation, reduces the gap between the ponies and the author separating him from the civilization as exemplified by the highways.
