Kevin's+Analysis

Kevin's Analysis of Freeway 280

explication By Kevin Kuo //Freeway 280// by Lorna Dee Cervantes is a poem that causes to think after reading it. Through the use of a mix of English and Spanish, the author sets a tone where it helps portrays the loneliness of people who all desire to return to a warm place where they belong.

The main thing that I get from this poem is that there is sadness that lies in it. The voice of this poem supports this because at the end of each paragraph the author seems to end in a sad note. In the last line in the first paragraph “The freeway conceals it all beneath a raised scar” (line 4-5) this helps emphasize my point. The author once remembers a beautiful setting with roses and man-high geraniums, but sadly all of that is gone now, and in place of it is a freeway. The author realizes that the only thing left of her past is memories and because of this she feels lost and lonely. Flowers are easy to grow, but their company make a home and garden warmhearted and hospitable

//Freeway 280// is supposedly one of the most scenic urban freeways in America. Due to this title it seems most likely that the author depicts the character of the story as nostalgic and wanting to return to the urban lifestyle instead of the busy street life with “rigid lane”.

The poem seems to not have any distinct pattern to it. The author decided to do this poem in “free-verse” a style of poetry where you can just speak your mind without any distinct pattern. From this style of writing I inferred that like this poem, human life is also scrambled and lost. The author of this poem could have also written the poem in a scrambled way to represent the naivety of humans to show their foolishness of letting go of something that they just can’t forget when they do.

I also believe that the mix of Spanish and English is really important. One way that I think that the bilingual wording is important is because while not all Spanish speaking workers are under or middle-class immigrants some of them are. This causes the poem to make more sense because I interpret the author to have remembered her past in Mexico, but has moved on to America, and is now in a busy world which causes her to feel empty, and longing for the past.  "Once, I wanted out, wanted the rigid lanes to take me to a place without sun, without the smell of tomatoes burning on swing shift in the greasy summer air. " (lines 16-19)

The ending of this poem plays an important role. The last few lines talk about how she wishes to finally find the thing that she is missing. The thing that is “mown under, like a corpse or a loose seed” in this context is the author's feeling of joy and happiness. Unlike her original home she has not yet found such a thing yet in the strange city "en los campos extranos de esta ciudad." (line 21)

I believe I can relate fairly well to her story. Not being able to see my dad for most of my life, I too felt kind of lonely and wanting to return to where we used to be as a family.

Perhaps Cervantes meant to interpret this poem differently. There are definitely many ways to interpret this, but from my interpretation I took that this poem was a very emotional and touching account of finding a place where you truly belong.