Poem Essay

Everyone takes pictures these days, whether it's a "selfie", an "artsy" picture, a Polaroid, or a digital camera. People take these pictures a post them on Instagram, Facebook,Twitter, Snapchat. The poem "Photography" by Nikki Giovanni, has a theme which is that photography is a way to show that everything has beauty.

The poet writes "It is easy sitting in the sun to forget the cold exists...It is easy sitting in the sun to forget the ice and ravages of winter yet " The poet is using the cold, ice, and ravages of winter as a symbol for his or her problems. This shows how the speaker has all these problems, he or she needs to forget , and that he or she can find this beauty in sitting in the sun, not having to worry.

Another example is "watching the red sun bleed into the ocean, one thinks of the beauty fire can bring." This shows how the speaker is finding beauty in such a simple thing; a sunset. Earlier in the poem it says, 'The eye we are told is a camera." The speaker is capturing this moment of the sunset. The speaker is also showing how something so deadly as fire, can be beautiful.

The poet also says “If the eye is a camera and the film is the heart, then the photo assistant is god.” When the speaker says this, he or she is saying that although the eye is what captures the moment, and the heart stores it, the photo assistant is the one who develops and prints out the photo. The photo assistant has all the power. The photo assistant has the power to print out the moments, choosing which will be captured forever.

After reading this, I realized that the poet is trying to show how powerful a photograph can be.

Bibliography

Giovanni, Nikki. “Photography.” Poetry Packet.