The poem "Persimmons" by Li-Young Lee really resonated with me. I am very interested in other cultures, languages, and want to work with English Language Learners in the future. So I empathized with the speaker when he talked about mixing up words like "fight" and "fright" and "wren" and "yarn." Vocabulary is one of the most difficult part of learning a new language, and native speakers who have never had to learn a second language don't understand that. I loved how Lee compared these words that seem to have no relation to one another. Another part I empathized with was when the speaker described Mrs. Walker cutting up the persimmon for the class to share. The speaker knew that the persimmon wasn't ripe and would taste bitter, but the teacher and the students didn't know that. "I didn't eat / but I watched the other faces" (lines 44-45). I assume his classmates made sour faces at tasting the persimmon, which was supposed to be sweet. This part of the poem further emphasized the gap in understanding of other cultures.
I too liked the play on words that the speaker used to emphasize this language difference. It was very interesting to think about the difficulties of learning a new language. This poem actually brought me back to my Spanish classes. I had a lot of trouble retaining a lot of what we learned in there.
ReplyDeleteYes Amy I agree that learning a language brings on new difficulties and one can actually lose their sense of identity when learning a second language. I am taking a class called Second Language Acquisition where we talked about learning a second language and the effects of that.
ReplyDelete