Analysis of Joy Harjo’s "White Bear"
Joy Harjo's vision of relating the city lights to a bear's claw throughout the poem "White Bear" is so vivid that the reader is able to paint in their head the picture that Harjo is describing with words. Harjo uses an extended metaphor that clearly describes the picture that one sees while looking out of the window of a departing airplane. The lingering decision to leave the airport and board the plane to Albuquerque includes a comparison of "Tulsa or New York, knives or corn meal” and sets a realistic tone. Harjo uses much detail as she talks about the plane and makes the reader feel like they are on the plane seeing the yellow lights below as the pilot of the plane circles around Mt. St. Helens. Her creative expression of watching lights flicker below the plane helps create the vision of a "white bear moving down from the north motioning her paws/ like a long arctic night." This metaphor is strong and clearly states the theme of the poem. Harjo's work includes the detailed metaphor of the bear's claw as the poem progresses, which sets the atmosphere. Harjo's "White Bear" is a strong extended metaphor, which relates the flickering of city lights to a bear's claw moving in a circular motion.
White Bear
by Joy Harjo
She begins to board the flight
to Albuquerque. Late night.
But stops in the corrugated tunnel,
a space between leaving and staying,
where the night sky catches
approaching herself from here to
there, Tulsa or New York
with knives or corn meal.
The last flight someone talked
about how coming from Seattle
the pilot flew a circle
over Mt. St. Helens; she sat
quiet. (But had seen the eruption
as the earth beginning
to come apart, as in birth
out of violence.)
She watches the yellow lights
of towns below the airplane flicker,
fade and fall backwards. Somewhere,
she dreamed, there is the white bear
moving down from the north, motioning her paws
like a long arctic night, that kind
of circle and the whole world balanced in
between carved of ebony and ice
oh so hard
the clear black nights
like her daughter's eyes, and the white
bear moon, cupped like an ivory rocking
cradle, tipping back it could go
either way
all darkness
is open to light.
Analysis of "Eagle Poem"
In "Eagle Poem", Harjo uses an extended metaphor that symbolizes a prayer to an eagle and addresses how prayers are beyond people's control. Harjo conveys how often prayers are said and carried out of people's souls and into "sky, to earth, to sun, to moon." Harjo reiterates the realization throughout the poem that "We are truly blessed because we/ were born, and die soon within a/ True circle of motion/ Like eagle rounding out the morning." She begins the poem by explaining the significance of prayer and concludes with a metaphor connecting a prayer to an eagle. This metaphor tells the story of how for every prayer, an eagle circles inside us. The poet's selection of words is strong and leaves the reader with an evident feeling of thanks and the idea that eagles carry prayers to the sky. While reading "Eagle Poem", the powerful extended metaphor helps readers realize that during prayers they won't know the outcome until a moment in the future. Joy Harjo's "Eagle Poem" brings out the importance of prayer, connects prayers with eagles through a dramatic extended metaphor, and informs people of the waiting process in which they will realize the outcome of their prayers.
Eagle Poem
by Joy Harjo
To pray you open your
whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear,
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.