In the poem “Looking at Photos,” the poet Jesus Cos explores the importance of family bonds, maintaining memories and how family tensions may arise within certain family members.
Firstly, Jesus describes several people in list form, which is seen in stanza 1: “Dagmaris walking away on the beach. Asuncion, her fan, her trim do. Gloria two days before dying. Roberto, pointing to nothing. Idermis behind Oscar, after Jorge.” The reader is given the idea that the author is describing the people he observes in a picture, a family picture. Cos describes it with much detail, giving the idea that he knows these people. It highlights the importance of storing memories with family members and how these memories can strengthen their family bond over time. Memories are important because they preserve all of the family members and keep their identity alive, even if they are not there anymore.
Secondly, it is observed that Jesus associates each family member with his or her most prominent feature. For example, he describes his aunt as ugly looking: “My aunt ugly as the word itself.” To highlight her appearance he uses a simile where he compares his aunt´s appearance to the word “ugly,” it gives the idea that she is the definition of the word “ugly” and, every time he hears about his aunt he instantly thinks about her unappealing appearance. Another example is how he describes his mother: ¨ My mother is like a distantly spilled perfume.” He highlights her as always smelling good. The distantly spilled perfume gives the idea that every time he walks past her, he can smell her scent. Jesus shows that we tend to remember people by their appearances, habits and actions. This is a way to help maintain each family member's identity and keep it alive.
Thirdly, the author of the poem keeps listing more of his family members: “I so far away I almost cannot make myself out. My brother was wasting a smile. My aunt as ugly as the word itself. Grandmother in her best days''. The reader can observe that the tone is shifted from a negative to a positive remark. This quote could probably hint how good or bad is the relationship between each family member and the author. It's normal to have tensions in the family, especially when they are close to each other. Another interpretation this quote can have is how everyone has something going on in their lives. Some people are happy such as the grandma, while others are having a hard time such as the brother.
There is no inspiration for this poem since this was an assigned essay. But my reasoning of why I chose this poem is because I thought it looked interesting and short. Because this poem was short, the writing process was challenging for me because there were not a lot of themes in the poem. The lack of themes made it hard to develop an essay that talked more in depth about each one. The literary devices that I decided to analyze were simile and tone shift. They were the most prominent and the ones that stuck out to me the most. I decided to structure the essay by analyzing the quote where the family members are listed in list form to introduce the characters. After introducing the family members, I analyzed the quotes where the family members were described. Lastly, I analyzed the characters that appeared in the photo and their emotions that they portray the way they were described.