Nye Questions

Hope and/or pessimism are sometimes reflected in poetry. In the work of at least two poets

you have studied, examine either or both of these attitudes and the way in which the poets have

chosen to convey them.



In Nye’s Poems, she stresses a lot on elements of service and making the world a better place. Nye stresses these ideas with lines like “We’re not going to be able to live in this world if we’re not willing to do what he’s doing with one another.” This shows that Nye is trying to unite people and I think this sends a message of hope and teching to younger generations. The another line that Nye says is in Two Countries “Skin had hope, that’s what skin does.” and “it remembers being alone and thanks to something larger that there are travelers, that people go places larger than themselves.” Both of these lines are very useful in showing Nye’s life and her beliefs in terms of healing and having hope for the future. I find that Nye focuses on hope and healing feelings that are rather optimistic even though she mentions some real-life tragic moments.

Nye also keeps her feelings of hope by demonstrating connections between family members to make sure that people who may take things like that for granted see some of the important elements of life and love. I think that Nye focuses so much on relationships because of the stress that her family put on them, this can be seen in the entire poem “Shoulders” is about a father caring for a son, this connection is often portrayed in literature as an extremely close bond or one that is completely destroyed. I think that Nye also takes great care in making sure that in her poes there is a strong bond between them to show hope and love and some level of a “model family”