Analyze and evaluate the use of imagery or form in the poems“America” by Claude McKay, and “Song” by Adrienne Rich.

In Adrienne's Rich's poem, "Song," and Claude McKay's
poem, "America," imagery plays an important part.

In
"Song," perhaps the title gives the reader its first clue that the poem has little to do
with loneliness, as one might think at the end of the first line of verse. Rich's
imagery provides further enlightenment. Each image presented in all of the stanzas
express something positive to offset the question of
loneliness.

In the first stanza, Rich defies that concept
of loneliness, agreeing that she is only lonely if beauty in the world can be
loneliness:

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...as a plane
rides...aiming
across the
Rockies
for the blue-strung
aisles
of an airfield on the
ocean.

The second
stanza finds Rich admitting to loneliness only if it feels like a woman on a journey,
going where she chooses, and avoiding places that do not suit her (what
freedom!):

as
a woman driving across country... / leaving behind... /
little towns she might have stopped / and
lived and died in,
lonely...

(She
would have been lonely if had she
stopped...insinuating that not stopping there means she is not
lonely.)

In the third stanza, Rich admits she would be
lonely if that meant that loneliness was that...

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of waking first, of breathing
dawns'
first cold breath on the city
of being the one awake
in a house
wrapped in sleep

The peace
that comes from waking before everyone else in the house indicates a pleasure in those
quiet moments—but NOT loneliness— while wrapped in sleep among others still
asleep.

Can lonely be...

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...the rowboat ice-fast on the shore
in
the last red light of the year
that knows what it is,
that knows it's neither
ice nor mud nor winter light
but wood, with
a gift for burning...?

The
imagery here shows what might at first seem to be
loneliness:

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the rowboat ice-fast on the shore / in
the last red light of the
year...

is a an
intentional misrepresentation. The subject of the stanza knows what it
is, and what it is not: it has potential
("with a gift for burning..."). "Gift" is a positive
word.

Rich basically says that she is only lonely if the
wonder around her, and the possibilities lying before her, make one
lonely.

In McKay's poem, he begins by using imagery that is
strong or harsh, but it does not put him off. Quite the contrary, he responds to the
harshness of America by wanting to further embrace her, despite the threat she
imposes:

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"bread of
bitterness,"

"sinks into my throat her tiger's
tooth."

After these images,
McKay shifts his response away from the threats
described:

I will
confess

I love this cultured hell that tests my
youth.

From this point on, the author gives a
negative image of the things that have a side of strength and imposition, but highlights
the positives, the duality, he sees in each.

Her
vigor flows...into my blood.

Giving me strength against her
hate,
Yet, as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her
walls with not a shred of terror...

By the end
of the poem, she ("America") is not the enemy, but the army at his
back:

Darkly I gaze into the days
ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders
there...

Whereas the poet himself starts out by
showing America as a frightening adversary, by the end, he leans on the strength of this
land.

Rich uses situational irony by providing the theme of
loneliness, but then presenting all the reasons that defy the image of
loneliness.

McKay's imagery presents the harsh side of America,
like a one-time adversary, who ultimately becomes his advocate and
strength.