Starry_Night

TUESDAY 9/11/01 The words from the Lucille Clifton’s poem “Tuesday 9/11/01” are portrayed perfectly on the people’s faces in the painting. In the first line of the poem, “thunder and lightning” (1) describes a storm that we “Americans” expect to hear about but the look on the people’s faces show the reaction of people in shock and fear from the horrific city-storm no one expected to ever witness. Because the poem is very straight forward, we can easily capture the expressions on their faces and we can clearly see what is happening in the painting. The line “no day will ever be the same” (2 -3) also lets us analyze the facial expressions and the painting depicts that the people are realizing that their lives have just been changed. The tone of horror was heard in this poem. The writer used wording that stated that America is not free from all the horrific things that happens in other countries. We are targets just like everybody else. The Starry Night Anne Sexton’s first stanza in the poem “The Starry Night” really does it for me. “The town does not exist” (1), she says. The painting reveals that this is so true. The town seems isolated without sign of life even though there are homes and buildings in the painting. However, the speaker never recognized this town. The tone in Sexton’s poem sounds suicidal and depressed. This tone is definitely expressed in the line “This is how I want to die” (11-12). Her words are really dark and lonely and the painting shows loneliness with only eleven stars in the sky and one tree standing and this solitude is brilliantly expressed in this poem. Although, she makes the night scene seem both beautiful and terrifying, she solely concentrates on the sky. It’s obvious that the death the speaker wishes for is not in town with the rest of society but in the sky. It really is quite interesting how much this poem and Anne Sexton’s life go hand-in-hand.