C.D. Wright Case

C.D. Wright dragged me into her poem from the collection One Big Self, If I were you, in which she uses perception and imagery, leading me to dig deeper into the meaning of the poem. Wright's poems' in her collection are based on descriptions and encounters with prison life when she visited several prisons. I found these poems to be interesting and descriptive as well as profound. It was as if Wright took a photograph and transformed it into writing. Perception and imagery act as important tools in Wright's poetry because they assist in developing the way I see the poem. When I take a picture, my eye is a tool that frames the way I can see things, mediating my perception. Wright's poem has the same effect, mediating what I see through the use of descriptive language . Imagery sets the mood by incorporating countless details that immediately put images in your mind. For me, seeing these images forced me to think only about what I was reading. Through the change of perception and use of imagery in the poem, If I were you, I can almost realize what it must be like to be a prison inmate, appreciating all the little things in life that I take for granted.

When I first read the poem it was confusing; I wasn't sure whom the "I" and "you" were. Through further analyzation, I realized the "I" is the speaker, the reader, the poet, or it could be anyone who is not in jail, and the "you" is a prison inmate. Initially the poem begins with "If I were you", which is Wright attempting to put herself in the shoes of an inmate,(Wright). She is quite unsuccessful because she isn't incarcerated and as she puts it, "I don't have a clue, do I"(Wright). But quickly the perception changes and she puts an inmate in her shoes, something she knows a lot more about. Through the change in perception I can quickly realize how limited and empty the life of a prisoner is compared to the free and full-filled world we live in. In the perspective of Wright's life, the prisoner would be able to, "Walk the dog to the bay every living day. The air is salted" (Wright). I don't get excited to walk my dog or think about the smell of salty air, because they're insignificant to me, I take them for granted. Yet if you were to think about these things in the light of a prisoner, they would be meaningful because they have no opportunities to experience these things. Wright causes the reader to realize how significant the freedoms we take for granted are to the inmates. It's hard to imagine myself as an inmate and because of that I take things for granted that they would die for.

Wright uses details and descriptive writing to create the imagery throughout the poem. The imagery assists with the perception of the poem creating a mood. In the Wrights view of the prisoner, she describes, "This is where you enter the eye of the fart. The air is foul.