Image is ‘joy’ by vanjavukadinovi, from Pinterest

Moments of Happiness by Zobaida Sharifzada

I scroll on my phone endlessly,
No thoughts, just scrolling mindlessly.
New pairs of shoes trending,
Now I’m just spending.

Golden hour pictures seen on my feed,
I’m on a beach so why not join the feed.
Click, snap, pictures taken,
Suddenly I’m awaken.

No charge left in my phone,
I’m all alone.
But I have the beautiful sun,
A new feeling has begun.

A feeling of happiness can be felt,
The beauty making my heart melt.
How have I not realized how beautiful nature can be,
How a simple thing in life can make you happy.

It’s a feeling of absolute contentment,
Words can’t describe this mesmerising moment.
The sun sparkles on the clear blue water,
The sand waiting to be chased by the ocean saltwater.

The sound of this magnificent moment is played,
Smells like a pretty perfume in the air being sprayed
The hot cold sun touches my skin,
The sun slowly diving into the sea,
Saying goodbye to the world.

Social media and pictures don’t give you this feeling,
Only moments like this filled with happiness does healing.
Must do this again,
Oh, what a beautiful feeling of Zen.

Moments of Happiness Poem Analysis

Theme: In a Season of Calm Weather By Ray Bradbury – We are distracted by materialism and social media – happiness by learning to live in the moment requires observation and appreciation for what is right in front of you; don’t defer happiness to the tangible or the material or some future date, but rather, live it now; art is more than a material thing, it is creativity and imagination in action; experiences are more important than things.

The poem ‘Moments of Happiness’ by Zobaida Sharifzada is an open poem with most of the poem being in coupled rhyme.  The poem uses figurative devices, sound devices, and tone to help the reader understand the theme of the poem, such as simile, personification, oxymoron, repetition, alliteration, onomatopoeia, and hyperbole. The poem’s theme reveals that we are too disconnected from this world as we are distracted by social media and materialistic things, that we forget the true happiness that is found within nature, and that we find absolute contentment in the beautiful moments in life. The narrator in the poem is not the poet but is a character experiencing a moment of happiness and realization. In the first half of the poem, Sharifzada describes that the person in the poem is disconnected from the world and is too focused on social media and purchasing things while they are on a beach, indicating that they are probably vacationing. Then there is a sudden shift in the poem that makes the character realize “how beautiful nature can be” (15). The shift is recognized in between the second and fourth stanzas where everything is looked from a negative, overconsumption, lost within technology aspect, to a more positive, mesmerised, blissed out moment appreciating nature. The poem ‘Moments of Happiness’ is about how a person lost in technology realizes the beauty and happiness that can be found within nature, “how a simple thing in life can make you happy” (16) and become everlasting memories. The poem’s purpose is to bring out the message that only true happiness can be found within the beautiful moments and experiences in life and that “social media and pictures don’t give you this feeling” (26). This poem gives an insight on the human condition giving it universality as well. Every human can connect to this poem because in this modern world we are too focused on materialistic things or technology that we tend to forget the natural beauties in life: “the sun sparkles on the clear blue water” (19). The details that nature has and how in every way nature is beautiful is truly wonderous. There’s the Metaverse and all these simulation, fake, virtual reality worlds that are being made, but what we have to realize is why should we spend our lives experiencing fake things and why not just go out in the beautiful world, discover, and have adventures in real life? In other parts of the world that don’t have much advanced technology there’s a lot of people that think true happiness is found in materialistic things but really, it’s in experiences that we find true contentment. Simply everyone can somehow connect to this poem. Sharifzada seems to be inspired by the poem, ‘In a Season of Calm Weather by Ray Bradbury’, as the poem gives the same type of insight into the human condition that Sharifzada’s poem is giving. The poem ‘Moments of Happiness’, gives you a happy, moment of realization type of feeling, the imagery really is the foundation of the poem, and it’s what brings out the theme even more. We must understand that humans are meant to be connected to nature, otherwise we can change in negative ways and drown within our own mistakes.

Praxis Poem Analysis

The poem ‘Praxis’ by Sharon Thesen is a very ironic, satirical poem filled with elaborate imagery and figurative devices. The theme suggests that humans are so arrogant at times that we just block the rest of the world, continue to complain about the problems in our society, and what we should do instead is get out of that bubble that we have created around ourselves and face the truth in the world. The poem is an open poem/free verse with no structure. This poem is about how we are like the society in Fahrenheit, we are unable to “imagine a future better than now” (2,3) and how we “only make noise & do not transform a single fact” (4,5). We see the problems that take place in the world but when it doesn’t affect us, we tend to not care and mute those problems in the world. We want change but we don’t really act upon how we feel. This poem tells us to stop complaining and break the bubble you have made for yourself: “Leap the mossy garden wall the steel fence or whatever the case may be & crash through painted arcadias, fragments of bliss & roses decorating your fists.” (6-12) The only way we are going to make real good change within our society and in this world is if we all come together as a whole, remove that facade, educate ourselves more, face the truth, and make a change for the betterment of this world and ourselves. There are so many elaborate figurative devices used in this poem: “us creatures weeping in the abattoir” (3). This phrase in the poem compares us to animals in a slaughterhouse and so it’s a metaphor. There is a lot of irony, imagery and there’s euphemism for the word abattoir and it makes the word slaughterhouse sound better by using different wording. That phrase also talks about how we tend to follow with the rest of the world in our little bubble in life trying to mute all the things that are happening around the world. There’s a lot of hyperbole and exaggeration with imagery to convey the message of the poem: “crash through painted arcadias” (9, 10). Sharon uses the word crash to emphasize breaking through the idealized environment we live in, get out of the fake, and everyone acts the same/happy type of world and get to the real in life and actually wake up. When Sharon uses the word arcadias it means to break through the facade (the fake layer to reveal what’s the truth), the fake idealistic vision of life filled with bliss. The poem ‘Praxis’ demonstrates universality and gives an insight on the human condition; so many people in this world tend to stay in their own world and only focus on that, ignoring the rest of the world because if we continue to ignore, we are not going to make any good change and we are following a dangerous path. In conclusion, we must understand that the only way to make better change in our world and become the better versions of ourselves is that we must break through our bubble and come together as humans and make a good change.