Dina Bengelsdorf Week 9 - Burning in the Rain by Richard Blanco

Dina Bengelsdorf Week 9 - Burning in the Rain by Richard Blanco    

Burning in the Rain" - Richard Blanco - English IV AP - Chanel Cobb

For our last Pick a Poet blog of the semester I decided to analyze Richard Blanco’s poem Burning in the Rain. The juxtaposition of “burning” and “rain” in the title is what initially caught my eye. This poem is all about embracing who you are because the desires we have will never really go away. This message is one I’ve seen in most, if not all of Blanco’s poems. He fights with his identity and eventually comes to the understanding that he should just be who he wants to be.

The poem starts off with conflict. Blanco wishes that he could stop giving into his desires, such as trying to become his father, or to stop thinking about his mother (who most likely passed away). He vividly describes this other desire to burn the desires. Like a “thousand gray butterflies in the wind,” Blanco uses this metaphor to illustrate his hopes to not just prevent, but to totally destroy, the thoughts, feelings, and urges he deems bad.

When he finally decides to take action, his final desire to burn is ultimately put out by rain everywhere. I think this means that no matter how hard he tries, what is in his heart will always remain. A fueled fire could always be put out with enough water; it is pointless to create a fire in the pouring rain. He says that his pages turned into “paper-mache souvenirs”. I really liked this as one of the last lines because it shows that something bad could really be something beautiful. I think that this message is not just important to Blanco but to myself as well.

Overall I find this poem really sweet. It feels like a light at the end of the tunnel and the message is personal, making it all the more powerful. It was short and not broken up into different lines, so the tone and words flowed almost as a story. It went from a tone of confusion and anger to peace and tranquility. This is one of my favorite poems I have read by Blanco thus far and recommend that you all read it as well. 

Comments

  1. Michael HakimNovember 15, 2022 at 9:42 AM

    This sounds like a really well-written poem. I feel like the message would be personal to me, too, as I feel I could relate to some of these messages.

    ReplyDelete
  2. mayaNovember 15, 2022 at 7:16 PM

    This sounds like a very powerful and emotional poem. I love the quote of “thousand gray butterflies in the wind.” I will try to read this poem on my own time because I love the ideas this may inspire about desire and authenticity.

    ReplyDelete
  3. BenNovember 19, 2022 at 8:35 AM

    I decided to take the liberty of reading the poem, and I was not disappointed. The imagery the author uses is so vivid that for me it intensified the meaning of the poem. I resonated with the idea of not being able to burn away desires that I have, which makes it seem very deterministic. It seems as if Blanco is trying to convey through his "paper-mache souvenirs" that his desires seem almost frivolous in light of his trying to burn them. A Very powerful message.

    ReplyDelete

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