Punishment

Seamus Heany, Rita Dove, and Sherman Alexie wrote three poems that favors punishments from different angles in life. The authors wrote in third person and different styles in each of the stories to help the reader get a better visual. The authors aim was to show a feeling towards the punishment. Everybody deserves punishment at least once in their life either for something they have done unintentionally or by nature. Even though the poems are all about punishments, each author gives the reader their own meaning of the word in their own situations.

Seamus Heany beginnings as a poet started with him meeting the woman whom he was to marry and who was to be the mother of his three children. Marie Heaney has been a central part to Heany's life, both professionally and imaginatively, appearing directly and indirectly in individual poems from all periods of his poems. Heany wrote a poem called Punishment where he describes to the reader how a woman is being tortured because she committed adultery. The narrator also shows some type of affection towards the woman in a couple lines saying, "I almost love you but would have cast, I know, the stones of silence (1167)." That line proves that he loves the girl but know that everybody, even him has sinned before. Heany's point of view shows sympathy and bitter love towards this act of punishment and shows me that Heany has been either hurt or subliminally receiving the other end of the punishment by describing the pain.

Rita Dove was the youngest person and the first African-American ever named Poet Laureate of the United States. Much of Dove's work concentrates on revealing the beauty and significance of everyday events in ordinary lives. In "The Yellow House on the Corner (1980)" and "Museum (1983)", she shows how such moments make up individuals' history and add to the experiences that human beings share. That explains why she wrote a poem called The Cane Fields. The Cane Fields was about a group of Haitian soldiers who was attacked by the dictator of the Dominican Republic because they could not roll their r's in the word Perijil on Oct 2, 1957. In the story there was a phrase used frequently which was "a parrot imitates spring" meaning, the parrot was a symbol of something beautiful and represented peace.

That phrase was used repeatedly through each line after the narrator describes his horror from the Dominican army to symbolize the gift and the curse of the war. The Haitians did not deserve the punishment but Dove wanted it to be recognized that even though they did not deserve the punishment, the Haitians still have to suffer. Everyone has felt that once in his or her life and Dove expresses it in her point of view. Sherman Alexie has achieved high praise for novels, poems, and short stories that enlightened contemporary Native American reservation life. His writings explore the different issues facing Native Americans, such as the ongoing destruction of traditional cultures and the problems associated with life on the reservation. Alexie wrote a poem called "Capital Punishment" where the story is told from the perspective of the cook who prepares the last meal for a condemned Native American before he goes on death row.

The line "I am not a witness" is repeated throughout the poem, it is said after Alexie addresses a sensitive societal issue. Topics concentrated on are prejudice, homosexuality, and clearly capital punishment. The speaker of the poem is