Instructions on Not Giving Up Literary Elements

First-person speaker, first singular and later plural, closely identifiable with the poet

Fourteen lines of between 10 and 15 syllables, one stanza, no rhyme. Contains some elements of a sonnet, but not all.

Line 4, "cotton candy" as both a color and implied metaphor for softness & sweetness
Line 4-5, "slate / sky" as both a color and implied metaphor for hardness & heaviness, contrasted with cotton candy
Line 7, "the world's baubles and trinkets," a metaphor for spring flowers as little ornaments or gems
Line 8, "the confetti of aftermath," a metaphor for the fallen spring flowers as confetti
Line 13-14, "a new slick leaf / unfurling like a fist," a simile for the new leaf as a hand

Line 1, alliteration of /f/, "fuchsia funnels"
Line 3, alliteration of hard /c/, "cotton candy-colored"
Line 3-4, alliteration of /s/, "slate / sky of spring"
Line 4-5, assonance of /ee/, "greening of the trees / that really gets to me"
Line 9, alliteration of /p/, "Patient, plodding"
Line 10, alliteration of /w/, "whatever winter"
Line 13-14, consonance of /f/, "leaf / unfurling like a fist"

Line 8, "the confetti of aftermath" is ironic and bittersweet because "confetti" implies the festive atmosphere of a party, but "aftermath" quickly tells us that this "party" is already over; we're only seeing its remnants
Line 14, "unfurling like a fist": to unfurl means to uncurl, to flatten out, making Limón's word choice ironic because if a fist is unfurling, it will very soon no longer be a fist, but just a hand.

Contemporary poetry

A residential street in early spring

Bittersweet hope

The human speaker against despair, hurt, and the urge to give up

A universal conflict of the human spirit overcoming "the mess of us, the hurt, the empty." This struggle is identified with the growth of new spring life after a hard winter.

The poem reaches a distinct turning point at line nine, when we begin to focus on the leaves with sincerity. However, in terms of the most dramatic, forceful part of the poem, it climaxes in its last two lines as the tree-speaker utters their defiant acceptance of whatever life has to offer.

The image of the cherry blossoms being thrust against the rainy spring sky foreshadows the image in line 8 of the pavement already strewn with flowers, perhaps knocked down by wind or rain.

Lines 10-12 thrive on the understatement and vague implication of hurt, knowing that the reader will be able to understand "whatever winter did to us" and "the mess of us, the hurt, the empty" in their own ways.

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Line 1, "fuchsia funnels" is subtle synecdoche in that the color and shape of the crabapple blossoms stand in for the flower as a whole
Line 6-7, "the shock of white / and taffy" uses metonymy by letting these descriptors of flowers stand in for the flowers themselves
Line 9, "a green skin" uses synecdoche to refer only to the "skin" of leaves

Line 3, the verb "shoving" assigns a human-like intentionality and activity to the cherry blossoms
Line 9, "a green skin" also implies a humanness or personification of the leafing tree
Lines 12-14 continue the personification of the tree by having it appear to speak, holding out a leaf like a hand

Line 3, "obscene display of cherry limbs." Very few people would call cherry blossoms "obscene," so this overstatement reflects the dissonance the speaker feels between her own internal melancholy and the bright, cheery flowers.
Line 14, "I'll take it all" is a subtle form of hyperbole in its use of "all." The truth is that there will always be things in life that we (or a tree) cannot actually "take," cannot endure or accept. But this bravado closes the poem on a powerful note.

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