“One Today”
I believe the theme of this poem is that people can be united under hope as they are encountering their new future. There were some of the specific lines that support this theme. Firstly, in the second stanza, it says my face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors, each yawning to life, crescendoing into our day. Therefore, this line suggests the daily scene that each different confronts with their unique faces and experiences. However, in the next stanza, it says all of us as vital as the one light we move through, the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day”. I thought this sentence is emphasizing that these different people have to come together and unite in the same country, under the same sky. The author also talks about “one wind- our breath” in order to show that breath that carries out words unites people. Through this, the author suggests that linguistic and cultural diversity can be overcome. In the end, the author talks about one sky, and one moon in the last stanza to show that if we unite, there can be a brighter future and better country, as the poem says “new constellation waiting for us to map it”.
“On the Pulse of Morning”
The theme of this poem is that people should overcome the past and be responsible for the future. The poem says that there was ‘bruising darkness” in the third stanza, implying the dark past that people need to confront. The author says it’s “nightmare, praying for a dream” in the ninth stanza. These phrases were to describe the past wrong actions, such as slavery. The author then compares this to American Dream, which implies equality. The author tries to say that people should overcome the past by facing it, as the author says people shouldn’t “face down in ignorance” in the third stanza. The author also implies the hope for a better future without the same mistake being repeated, as the author says “give birth again to the dream” in the tenth stanza.
During the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the number of immigrants rapidly increased in America. Due to the diversity of cultures that were associated with people from different countries around the world, America was called a “Melting Pot”. However, these diversities often became the main element of the conflict between people. People often came to form blocs with similar identity and traditions. Racial discrimination was often caused by the stereotype against a certain race, which created segregation. These kinds of problems naturally occurred after different cultures came to mingle with each other. This is also elaborated in the poem “One Today”, as the poem talks about despite all these cultural differences, we have to get together for a better future. The Poem “On the Pulse of Morning” also talks about how people should discard the dark past, which is discrimination in this sense, and be responsible for the future, which is being together and not repeating the same mistake in this sense.
Writer: Anne Ma
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