Sam Flomenhoft Assignment 3

In her poem, "Singapore," Mary Oliver originally gives her speaker a tone of disgust for the woman washing the ash tray in the toilet, but it eventually turns into a tone of appreciation.

Oliver establishes the negative tone in the beginning with her strong, personal diction. In line 2 ("a darkness was ripped from my eyes,") she uses darkness which has a negative connotation and the word ripped, which is accompanied by violent imagery. She also writes, "Disgust argued in my stomach" (l. 6). The word disgust obviously goes a long way to describe the early tone of the speaker as disgust, because, well, they're the same word. Argued is associated with fighting, and adds to the negative tone.

Oliver finally switches her speaker's tone to one of appreciation using simile. She compares the way she works to a river, and her hair to a bird, while earlier in the poem she established these things (bird and river) were necessary to poems and for pleasant reading of poems. By comparing the lady to things the speaker likes, she is showing her respect and appreciation for her and the job she does.


"Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in."  --Amy Lowell

People often use art to express themselves. Music can be happy or tragic, depending on the mood the composer wants to purvey. Picasso in painting, depicted his emotions through the colors he worked with. He was sad during his blue period, and happy throughout the rose period. Many of Banksy's graffitis are expressing his political opinions. I believe art is the way people say things they can't say in words, and this is a way to keep us sane. It is how we show other people our view of the world, without imposing too much on their own view.