Lower Eastside Poem - Analysis the Poetic

¶ … Lower Eastside Poem" - analysis The poetic turn is largely meant to provide audiences with the feeling that the speaker experiences an inner conflict and wants to project it onto listeners. It is practically as if he or she would want audiences to gain a more complex understanding concerning the ideas that he or she is referring to in addition to simply appreciating the concepts the poem describes.

Miguel Pinero's poem "A Lower Eastside Poem" describes the speaker wanting to go in a gracious way, as he wants his ashes to be scattered across the Lower Eastside of New York City's Manhattan area in an attempt to remain a part of the territory forever. Pinero describes the Lower Eastside using a series of expressions that emphasize the area's depravity. To a certain point, one might be inclined to believe that he believes himself to be superior to most individuals in the territory.

The fact that he wants to reach the "tenement sky / to dream my lungs out till / I cry" is apparently meant to demonstrate that he wants out of this place. The roof of a tenement building is one of the most important things that he associates with liberty. Even though he appears to despise most people in the Lower Eastside, he also seems to want them to suffer as a result of his death.

He wants his ashes to cause their eyes to be dry (this probably being a reference to them crying) and to get them high (as they would feel exulted as a result of having interacted with him). Until this moment the poem generally appears to portray the speaker in a positive light, one that emphasizes how he is different from the typical individuals who frequent the area and how he feels that his presence (even in the form of ashes) in this place is beneficial for these people.

However, the turning point highlights the fact that he belongs in this place and that it would be wrong for him to ever want to leave it, dead or alive. He seems to be no different from hustlers, suckers, faggots, or freaks, taking into consideration that he "committed every known sin." He is actually a part of the Lower Eastside and he belongs there forever, regardless of whether he sometimes superior or not.

It appears that the speaker is concomitantly trying to get recognition for his abilities and acknowledging that he will never have what it takes to be different from most people in the ghetto. The speaker paradoxically recognizes the horrible nature of the Lower Eastside and also admits that it is his favorite place in the world. He does not identify with his.