English 42 - I Am Offering this Poem - Jimmy Santiago Baca

         Jimmy Santiago Baca's "I am Offering this Poem" starts off with the poet offering this poem as he has nothing else to give.  It has 4 stanzas, separated by the line, "I love you,". The poet is apparently in a position where he can not give his love everything he would want to give, but he mentions that his poem is to be kept to protect his love. He doesn't mention who it is he offeres the poem to, but the fact that the stanzas are separated by the line, "I love you," and the underlying tone, it seems the poet and his "love" is distant, but not forgotten.
         In the first stanza, his poem, his love, or care he seems to be giving is to shield from the cold - "like a warm coat when the winter comes to cover you," In the second stanza, he mentions again he has nothing else to give, it is like food, like a scarf. In the third stanza, he goes up the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which goes from physiological, safety, social, esteem to self-actualisation. The first two stanza mentions safety from cold and food which is physiological. The third stanza, Jimmy mentions to keep it "treasure this as you would if you were lost, needing direction, in the wilderness life becomes when mature;" it seems to fulfill esteem and self-actualization.
           In the final stanza, the poet says "It's all I have to give, and all anyone needs to live," and he ends with "remember, I love you." Indeed, the poet seems to be separated from whom he writes to, but he offers everything in lack of everything he can't offer: he offers his love - higher than all he has. He has offered everything on the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, but less of the social need. He isn't with the person he writes to, he offers the poem in his place I believe, and so socially he is somewhat separated. While the poem can not literally offer safety, pysiological, social fulfilment, it can fulfil self-actualization - that the poet loves the person he writes to, which is the highest on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Would you agree that self-actualization, or the love he offers is powerful enough to fulfill the things he apparently can not give?

English 42 - Legacy - Amiri Baraka

          "Legacy" by Amiri Barka seems to write about the homeless people in the South, who sleep near drugstores, under trucks and stoves. They wave their hands drunkingly. They squat to drink or pee, as would impoverished people living on the streets would. The poem takes an imaginary turn when the poet descries the person "Stretching to climb pulling themselves onto horses near where there was sea." They travel from this town to another. They travel towards the moon or shadows of houses. The poet tells that that sea was only pretended. I find the poem vivid, exploring the world of a person on the streets... and the imagination that they retain. Is there a deep context to this poem?