Sotos Black Hair Essay -- Soto Black Hair Essays

Sotos Black HairThe title of Sotos Black Hair is rattling ordinary. The image that forms from the color black serving as an adjective to describe the common noun hair paints a mundane picture that does not allow for every analysis beneath this concrete image. But in cases where the title is not an attention getter, the content of the poem is usually more of a challenge and Sotos Black Hair is a perfect example. As the title suggests, there are many concrete images and figures presented throughout the poem, but after a finish reading it is apparent that the underlying themes of family and culture lay beneath these tangible images through the poetic elements of the metonymy, the metaphor, color imagery, and the pun.The poem begins by introducing the main figure in the poem, a naturally talented baseball player named bullyrag Moreno. To the storyteller, the game of baseball is more than just a simple game, it is a figure Hector Moreno (6). Describing Hector Moreno initially as a fig ure closely associated with the game of baseball shows just how revered a person Hector is in the storytellers mind. This image of Hector Moreno is quite concrete, but as the poem continues, the narrator expresses to the reader that his father died sometime during his childhood, as his fathers face no durable hangs over the knock back (18). Suddenly the image of Hector Moreno is not as concrete as it first appears, especially through the lines leading up to Morenos first appearance on the baseball field in the lengthening shade (4-5). The shadow of the narrators father over the dinner table when he was a boy has now taken the form of Morenos figure in the shade over the baseball field since the narrators father has died. This initial me... ...se, watching Moreno touch home plate is like the narrator being welcomed into the arms of the brown people (30). Because of his difficult home life, the narrator finds comfort and love in the midst of baseball and his Mexican culture. Sotos Black Hair is a perfect example of a poem that is useful through close analysis of certain concrete images which hold the key to the foundation of the poem and its underlying themes. In this poem, the universal themes of family and culture are unavowed under the figure of Hector Moreno, the image of the narrators hair, as well as the extended baseball metaphor about culture. Although the title may seem ordinary at first glance, the challenge that the poem presents through its connection of concrete images and themes is very intriguing, and the themes are made clear through the effective use of certain poetic elements.