Relationships with Places

Many authors have a strong connection with the place that they grew up in or the place where they lived most of their lives.  This is especially true of the authors and poems that we read for class this week.  Phyllis Wheatley’s “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” Maya Angelou’s “Africa,” Derek Walcott’s “A Far Cry from Africa,” and Basho’s haikus are all about a place that is important to the author. 

In Phyllis Wheatley’s “On Being Brought from Africa to America,” Wheatley is pleased that she was taken from Africa and brought to America.  She has formed a closer connection to the United States and its culture than that of Africa.  In “Africa,” Maya Angelou feels very differently from Phyllis Wheatley.  Angelou has written about terrible things that happened in Africa, the effect that they had on the people, and finally being able to recover from them.  Similarly, Derek Walcott’s “A Far Cry from Africa” deals with the author’s connection to Africa and some of the terrible things that have happened there. 

Unlike the other poems we read this week, Basho’s haikus are about a connection to Japan.  Readers can visualize the frog and the pond that he has written about from just a few words.