I Am Offering this Poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca Analysis Essay Example

Jimmy Santiago Baca’s work, “I Am Offering this Poem,” expresses the raw emotion of love, through words of affirmation. The piece of literature revolves around the idea of communicating comfort and warmth to your loved ones despite what material objects you have to offer. 

Baca uses a variety of poetic devices to indirectly pass his message across to the reader. Metaphors are consistently utilized throughout the poem as they compare the indescribable yet simple feelings of love and safety to inanimate things and places. For example when he writes, “Keep it like a warm coat when winter comes to cover you, or like a pair of thick socks the cold cannot bite through.” This adds a sense of imagery to an emotion that cannot truly be seen or touched, and compares it to a material object which can. The poet takes advantage of the mood that these examples ignite, and therefore creates a mood of nurture and comfort. Punctuation plays a role in the interpretation of the poem as well. The use of periods are only used twice in the whole poem, once in the after the first line in the poem and once after the last line of the poem. This emphasizes the two main ideas of the poem, the opening line being “I am offering this poem to you, since I have nothing else to give.” And the last line being “I love you.” Making it clear that the poem is a form and expression of the speaker’s love. Since the periods abruptly end the two main thoughts, the rest of the poem is used as a guidebook filled with examples of comforting things, separated by commas to express one continuous thought. The themes of expression and intimacy are deeply ingrained through alliteration and repetition. As “you” and “through” in the first stanza align with ‘wear’ and hair’ in the second. This poetic device clearly grabs the reader's attention, thereby creating a captivating piece of literature. Baca purposely wrote, “I love you,” after every stanza in the poem, utilizing the tool of repetition. Readers are constantly reassured of the love that is being given to them when they receive this poem. This repeated phrase speaks for the poet as an affirmation, though it is also disguised throughout the entire poem.

The theme tying metaphors into a coherent concept is the comfort of knowing that in the confusing world ahead, there is alway someone in their corner loving them. The poem reads, “If you were lost, needing direction, in the wilderness life becomes mature; and in the corner of your drawer, tucked away like a cabin or hogan in dense trees, comes knocking, and I will answer, give you directions.” Although material objects may seemingly bring you happiness, nothing is as strong as the security of always having someone by your side.