"Nani" (#269 page 325) by Alberto Rios

Rios uses personification and jargon to discuss the speaker’s encounter with his Latina grandmother.  While the speaker is eating his grandmother's cooking, jargon is used to show the miscommunications between the two family members. When the grandmother speaks in her native language using Spanish words including: "sopa de arroz" (2)., "albondigas" (9)., and "mama" (19), her grandson does not completely understand what she means. Rather, the speaker understands his grandmother through her wrinkles. The grandmother’s wrinkles show her past, her children, her love; this is what the grandson understands. The speaker "sees a wrinkle speak" (22). The wrinkles are personified to tell stories of the grandmothers past to help the grandson better understand her.

I enjoyed this poem a lot. I can relate the speaker because I too have a grandmother who speaks in her native language Spanish to me. Although there are some times he is unable to translate what she is saying. He is able to understand her through her face and expressions. This reminds me of my grandmother and spending time with her.

I wondred lonely as a cloud - Wordsworth (page 343 - # 295)

Wordsworth uses literary devices including metaphors and similes to compare the speaker to a cloud. In the poem, the speaker is, as "lonely as a cloud" (1).  This describes the speaker before he finds beautiful daffodils. Later the metaphor of comparing the speaker's feelings to nature is used. Since finding the flowers, whenever the speaker feels lonely and dreary like a cloud, the thought of colorful happy flowers brightens his day.

In the poem "I wondered lonely as a cloud," the speaker finds himself lonesome, the beauty in nature, more specifically daffodils, raises his spirits. Now whenever the speaker has a forlorn feeling the memory of nature's beauty is able to make him feel better. I appreciate the contrast in feeling between a grey, dull and dreary cloud with beautiful and vibrant flowers. This provides a clear contrast of emotion.