Poetry Evaluation: Significance in "Bearded Barley" Anonymous College

“Bearded Barley” is a poem written by Tacoma Community College professor Allen Braden. The speaker of this poem is an observer, and the audience is commoners or those who under-appreciate the barley plant. The poem goes into detail about the plant by describing the appearance of it, explaining how it is utilized and emphasizing why it is strong. The central idea of this poem is to convince the reader that what may seem insignificant (barley) may, in fact, be significant.

To begin, in the first two couplets the poet uses visual imagery to describe the appearance of barley as it grows. For example, Braden uses personification by describing the plant as “proud” to give a feeling of confidence in the way it stands. He does this again in line two “stretching” to describe the fact that it grows upright. The use of “arrow”, “wand”, and “whiskers” again helps to create images in the reader's mind on the appearance of barley. Lastly, the use of adjectives “skinny”, “gold”, and “stiff” all help to add clarity to the visual images through the poet’s language. In the third couplet, the poet attempts to connect with the audience by using the pronouns “you” and “us”. He uses the second and first-person point of view to try a more personal...