Reading Response to Poetry

                                       Reading Response to Photography by Nikki Giovanni

Through different eyes, everyone has a different opinion of what they enjoy or find relaxing. Sometimes we get caught up in our own lives that we “forget that cold exists”. However, it is often helpful to take notice that other people can be feeling different things at the same time. The poem “Photography” by Nikki Giovanni describes the speaker’s view of life by using photography as a symbol and metaphor.  To bring emphasis to this topic, Giovanni uses lines breaks to make the text more dramatic. I think Giovanni wants the reader to notice that everyone has their own perspective and opinion, as well as have some control over what these are.

In the poem, Giovanni describes how easy it is to forget the hard things in life when you’re enjoying something else, “it’s easy sitting in the sun/to forget that the cold exists” (8-9). In this quote, the sun symbolizes the enjoyable things in life while the cold represents the less enjoyable or comfortable aspects in Life.

The speaker wants the readers to know “it’s always easy when thinking/we have the best to assume/others covet it/yet surf or sea each has/its love and its meaning/for love” (17-22). In these lines, I think Giovanni is trying to explain to the reader that we all have different ideas on what we things we love and it doesn't change what we think. At the same time it’s easy to forget that these differences exist.

While reading this poem, Giovanni’s last metaphor at the end of the text stood out to me. She states in the metaphor, “then the photo assistant is god” (27) This quote reminds the reader that you can control or decide how you feel about different things and chose what things you have feelings for.

As a teenager, at this age I’m in the middle section of where kids break away to become more independent. Only recently have I entered this part of life, so I am more often in a position to express my own opinion and make choices. Of course being at such a young age and not being used to having so much control over my actions, it can sometimes be hard to decide what path is the right one to take. Like the speaker describes in the poem, I have control of what my opinions are on certain things. Everyone is taking different paths, and a lot of my friends may go different ways, but I can control how I want to be and what my opinions are okay if we all think differently about things. We can co-exist with our different thoughts or opinions.

Works Cited

Giovanni, Nikki. “Photography.”