Responding to a Poem(s)

In the poem Immigrants in Our Own Land, by Jimmy Santiago Baca I found some deeper meaning.  Although the poem asserts to be written about immigrants, it made me think about jail or prison.  The poem talks about the desire to rehabilitate the immigrants. This is similar to the way the justice system declares they want to rehabilitate criminals to become useful members of society.  I find this claim to be absurd.  Jails serve little more purpose than to store humans.  They are simply a place to put people who are a bother to society.  It is an arbitrary punishment for whatever crimes the individuals has been charged with.  The poem refers to these ‘immigrants’ as living in cells with bars.  And the result of their stay, “our bodies decay, / our minds deteriorate, we learn nothing of value. / Our lives don’t get better, we go down quick.”(39-41).  Some become gangsters, “Some will die and others will go on living / without a soul, a future, or a reason to live.” (63-64).  I think it describes their situation best when it said, “so very few make it out of here as human”(66).  The poem doesn’t go so far to make me feel like incarceration isn’t a necessary part of our justice system. It does however make me feel like more is necessary in caring for individuals charged with crimes.  It turns out that the author has some expertise in this subject being a former convict himself (enotes). I really feel he did an excellent job of portraying the situation of those in the prison system.

  

  The second poem that held my attention, while reading threw the collection provided, was Photograph from September 11 by Wislawa Szymborska.  I appreciated how this scene of September 11 was depicted.  For myself the events of that date were not continues streams of time, rather brief images captured between glances at a TV and suppressing the deep feelings of disbelief.  She said, “The photograph halted them in life” (4).   Thus describing the images burned into film or burned into the minds of those viewing the event.  As if these images would preserve alive the falling victims they depict.  She concludes by saying “I can do only two things for them— / describe this flight / and not add a last line.” (17-19)  So in her own way she was honoring these lives lost by telling about how they died.  In order to keep their memory alive and not add to the horror, she chose not to describe the final impact that ended their existence.

Sources:

"JailCells." Microsoft Office 2007 Clipart

"Cuffed." Microsoft Office 2007 Clipart