"a Benediction for Hustlers and gardeners" by Lauren Zuniga
Excerpt
We’d see you float up to the spot in your platinum canoe and scribble
autographs on the curling bark of willing girls. You’re 27 now, still selling ideas out of your basement. You’re 31 now, still punching clocks in the thick noon of the day You’re 42 now, still hoping for lava to pour out of traffic lights. You’re too old for all this, you say, after three graveyard shifts at the Light Bulb Farm, followed by 8am at the Grown Up Factory. You used all your vacation time, scattering megaphones along the highway, and sleeping on crusty motel beds in Iowa. |
Performance
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Analysis of "a Benediction for Hustlers and Gardeners"
Lauren Zuniga works magic with metaphors and analogies, and her poem “The Benediction for Hustlers and Gardeners” is no different. She uses metaphors at each turn to equate everyday occurrences to the phenomenal, such the hustler's hard-work and passion with planting a garden, saying “Let the seeds you’ve been spitting all these years, take root and cover the earth with your purpose.”
In addition to analogies and metaphors, Zuniga uses repetition to create flow and fill her poem with passion. Repetition first appears in the excerpted text with the repeating ages, and again later in the poem when uses the words “let the” become a chant that drives the poem forward, building momentum with each line.
The final distinct style Zuniga has incorporated in this poem and also her others is the use of conversational tone, which allows the poem to feel organic. She uses phrases like, “we were all pretty sure, you were going to be the hottest thing since Dr. Dre or pomegranate juice” that make her poetry more accessible.
In addition to analogies and metaphors, Zuniga uses repetition to create flow and fill her poem with passion. Repetition first appears in the excerpted text with the repeating ages, and again later in the poem when uses the words “let the” become a chant that drives the poem forward, building momentum with each line.
The final distinct style Zuniga has incorporated in this poem and also her others is the use of conversational tone, which allows the poem to feel organic. She uses phrases like, “we were all pretty sure, you were going to be the hottest thing since Dr. Dre or pomegranate juice” that make her poetry more accessible.