Kyle's Essay

Kyle Sebastian
Professor H. Salsich
English 9
14 April 2009

A Recipe Called Life:
An Essay on Connections Between “Sonny’s Blues” and “Little Brother.”

TS: Naomi Shihab Nye is a wonderful poet who has written countless meaningful poems. SD: All of her poems hold great literary elements and connections to other pieces of literature. CM: DaVinci was a renowned artist for the sheer talent he poured into each of his brush strokes and Ms. Nye is a renowned poet for the sheer passion she puts into her lines. CM: One of the many famous pieces of writing we can compare her “Little Brother” poem to is “Sonny’s Blues.”

TS: I discerned several beautifully executed examples of figurative language in Naomi Shihab Nye’s Poem. SD: She had a very nice example of a hyperbole in the beginning of the poem. CM: “Some strange bruise you still carried under the skin” is what she says to symbolize the hurt that her brother had still carried with him. CM: Moreover she explains that he was still feeling hurt by the things that she had done to him and that the pain he felt didn’t heal as quickly as a cut or scrape; instead it resided like a “bruise [he] still carried under the skin.” SD: She also uses a simile to describe herself and her brother. CM: She expresses how she believes that her brother is destined for greater things than her by comparing him to “Wall Street” and herself to “the local food market.” CM: Additionally she widens the gap that she believes is between them by saying “We’re different, always have been.” SD: The third and final example is imagery especially when she describes what it would be like if her brother was with her right then. CM: “You’d be outside cranking up the lawnmower. I’d be in here answering mail” is what she says. CM: The whole scenario seems like a scene from a movie playing in my head that I can see perfectly clear. CS: In summary Ms. Nye really has used beautiful figurative language throughout her poem.

TS: Indeed both Ms. Nye’s poem and the “Sonny’s Blues” passages hold deep meaning and are connected to one another. SD: In the first passage from “Sonny’s blues” Sonny’s brother explains the death of his young daughter Grace and how his wife felt the day Grace died. CM: She often had nightmares, waking up crying, clinging to her husband for comfort. CM: A reoccurring theme in both the poem and this passage is loss. CM: Sonny’s brother has lost his precious little baby girl and Ms. Nye has lost the “little brother [. . .] who ran miniature trucks up [her] arms” when he was little. SD: The second passage is at the end of the story when Sonny is playing with Creole and the rest of the band. CM: Another theme that connects both the poem and this passage together is giving. CM: At the end of the poem I think Ms. Nye is trying to give her brother her apology for all the things she has ever done by saying “It’s a large order I know, dumping out a whole drawer at once” meaning she knows that it’s a lot to be apologizing for at one time. CM: However, in the “Sonny’s Blues” passage music seems to be giving Sonny a chance to get his life back, but only if people would listen to him “he would never be free until [they] did.” CS: In conclusion both Sonny’s blues and Ms. Nye’s poem hold significant themes that many people can learn from and use in real life.

TS: Heard them spoken in a play, find them lying in the consequential lines of a poem, sometimes our greatest life lessons can’t be learned in real life. SD: Both “Little Brother” and “Sonny’s Blues” are examples of pieces of writing made for more than reading, but also teaching. CM: Both Ms. Nye’s poem and “Sonny’s Blues” teach us the sorrow of loss and the joy of giving. CM: These are both simply two ingredients that are essential for mixing, stirring, baking, then eating in the recipe called life.

Bold-FAST Words
Red-Periodic Sentence
Purple-Participial Phrase (Closer)
Green-Asyndeton