Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Study Guide for Alicia Ostriker's "His Speed and Strength"
    A Study Guide for Alicia Ostriker's "His Speed and Strength"
    A Study Guide for Alicia Ostriker's "His Speed and Strength"
    Ebook31 pages52 minutes

    A Study Guide for Alicia Ostriker's "His Speed and Strength"

    By Gale and Cengage

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Alicia Ostriker's "His Speed and Strength," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateAug 26, 2016
    ISBN9781535824798
    A Study Guide for Alicia Ostriker's "His Speed and Strength"

    Read more from Gale

    Related to A Study Guide for Alicia Ostriker's "His Speed and Strength"

    Related ebooks

    Teaching Methods & Materials For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Rooney, Tóibín, Groff, and More

      Sep 7, 2021

      Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new titles from Sally Rooney, Colm Tóibín, Lauren Groff, and whole lot more—that are publishing this week. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Rooney, Tóibín, Groff, and More appeared first on The Mill

      9 min read

    • Article

      The Beautiful Faraway: Why I’m Grateful for My Soviet Childhood

      Feb 9, 2018

      At 10 I wanted to be an artist, practiced a hysterical form of Christianity, talked to trees, and turned a sunset at a local park into a visionary experience. My great-aunt lured me to Evangelical Christianity with the strangeness of Gospel stories w

      13 min read

    • Article

      Imagined Histories

      Sep 2, 2021

      Imagined Histories
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Volta

      Mar 1, 2024

      One characteristic element of a sonnet is the turn, or to use the Italian word, volta. The typical definition holds that: In a sonnet, the volta is the turn of thought or argument: in Petrarchan or Italian sonnets it occurs between the octave and the

      14 min read

    • Article

      Glimmers Of Hope: A 2021 Poetry Preview, Part 1

      Jan 11, 2021

      This year, critic Craig Morgan Teicher says American poetry has become too big for just one person to cover, so he's invited five colleagues to bring their own perspectives to our 2021 poetry preview.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Banks, Wilson, Krasznahorkai, and More

      Nov 8, 2022

      Here’s a quick look at some notable books—new titles from Russell Banks, Kevin Wilson, László Krasznahorkai, and more—that are publishing this week. Want to learn more about upcoming titles? Then go read our most recent book preview. Want to help The

      6 min read

    • Article

      Rewiring The Gendered Gaze

      May 1, 2019

      AP2 Books Chelsey Minnis, Baby I Don’t CarePaperback, 272 pagesWave Books, 2018 Khadijah Queen, I’m So Fine: A List of FamousMen & What I Had OnPaperback, 96 pagesYesYes Books, 2017 Carmen Gimenez Smith, Cruel FuturesPaperback, 88 pagesCity Lights Sp

      6 min read

    • Article

      Love Is An Act Of Resistance

      Nov 1, 2020

      IN LITTLE BIG BULLY, award-winning writer Heid E. Erdrich (Ojibwe, enrolled at Turtle Mountain) turns to poetry for resilience, using well-crafted imagery, finely tuned language and sharp humor to navigate both stories of individual abuse and systemi

      3 min read

    • Article

      Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Washington, Hustvedt, Rosenwaike, Rankine, and More

      Mar 19, 2019

      These are the 10 books we can't wait to get our hands on this week. The post Tuesday New Release Day: Starring Washington, Hustvedt, Rosenwaike, Rankine, and More appeared first on The Millions.

      8 min read

    • Article

      Books Of The Month

      May 12, 2023

      By Kae Tempest This collection covers a huge variety of forms, from punchy rhyming poetry that nods to Tempest’s prowess as a performer to playful works that experiment with white space on the page. The topics are just as diverse, including romance,

      2 min read

    • Article

      Dear Poetry

      Dec 14, 2022

      Dear Poetry
      9 min read

    • Article

      Where Is Poetry Now?

      Aug 15, 2018

      Where Is Poetry Now?
      6 min read

    • Article

      Book Review

      Mar 17, 2023

      Book Review
      3 min read

    • Article

      TheTimeIsNow

      Dec 13, 2023

      Love poems have a long and storied literary history. “The Love Song for Shu-Sin,” composed in ancient Mesopotamia for use in fertility rituals, is considered by some to be the oldest love poem found in text form. “Song of Songs” from the Old Testamen

      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Study Guide for Alicia Ostriker's "His Speed and Strength"

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Alicia Ostriker's "His Speed and Strength" - Gale

      1

      His Speed and Strength

      Alicia Ostriker

      1980

      Introduction

      His Speed and Strength, published in Alicia Ostriker's 1980 collection The Mother/Child Papers, is a mother's meditation on both her son's maturation and the human race's survival. The poem's setting, its references to popular culture, and its conversational diction all belong to contemporary America. The speaker's allusions to mythical goddesses and poet Walt Whitman, however, signal the timeless relevance of the mother's thoughts. In her book of essays, Writing Like a Woman, Ostriker says of the period in which she wrote this poem: It was impossible [in the 1970s] to avoid meditating on the meaning of having a boy child in time of war, or to avoid knowing that 'time of war' means all of human history. In the poem, the mother watches her son display speed and strength on his bicycle and at the town pool. She fancies herself a modern version of the ancient goddesses Niké and Juno as she competes with and protects her son. Through a series of ordinary images, the mother observes the masculine and feminine traits that compose her son's emerging adult identity. The poem implies that our culture opposes these traits at its own peril. On the one hand, the mother is proud of her son's developing speed, strength, and competitiveness—all traditionally masculine traits. But, since these traits also suit boys to become war fodder, the mother hopes to nurture in her son a (traditionally feminine) sense of connection to other people and things. If he maintains this connection, his strength may serve constructive, not destructive, ends. The son shows concern for his mother and a sense of connection to other boys as he goes off to play.

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1