Thursday, April 22, 2010
Bird With Two Right Wings by lawrence Ferlinghetti
I think that this poem is about having to do with the Air Force, of course, and having to do with America training for combat, i guess, or being in the middle of the war. I am not entirely sure what was going on in the poem; I couldnt really picture what was going on because there wasnt much imagery going on. It seems as if the poem is describing the logo on captain's cap as a donkey, elephant, and donkephant. I'm not entirely sure what has happened in that part of the poem but i do know that towards the end of the poem, i pictured people sitting down in the passenger seats, listening to what is going on in the air.
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Try to avoid taking the poem literally; actually, the poem is all imagery--using the plane (Air Force One is the U.S. Presidential private plan)as an extended metaphor for socio-political criticism. Sitting in the plane is the American public--it's us (what politicians always like to call "the American people," following that by pronouncing what it is we are supposed to want). Once you frame the poem's imagery as symbolic of a country driven by right-wing ideology, no matter who the current "pilot"/president is (whether "democrat"/donkey or "republican"/elephant--these are the standard symbols of the two parties--makes no difference), then you should be able to interpret the socio-political criticism suggested by the imagery.
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