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“I Am Offering This Poem” Response

Write at least 75 words!

Prompt

Read the text “I Am Offering This Poem” by Jimmy Santiago Baca.

Compare the speaker’s attitude toward his poem—and toward love—in the first and last stanzas. How has the speaker’s perspective changed?

Write a paragraph to explain your answer, including at least two pieces of evidence from the text.

If you’d prefer, you can open this PDF version of the text.

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I Am Offering this Poem

Jimmy Santiago Baca

In this poem, the speaker expresses his love for another person through poetry rather than through physical gifts.

An outstretched hand wrapped in string-lights holds out a heart made of the same twinkling lights. — Photo by Elias Maurer on Unsplash.

I am offering this poem to you,
since I have nothing else to give.
Keep it like a warm coat
when winter comes to cover you,
or like a pair of thick socks
the cold cannot bite through,

I love you,

I have nothing else to give you,
so it is a pot full of yellow corn
to warm your belly in winter,
it is a scarf for your head, to wear
over your hair, to tie up around your face,

I love you,

Keep it, treasure this as you would
if you were lost, needing direction,
in the wilderness life becomes when mature;
and in the corner of your drawer,
tucked away like a cabin or hogan
in dense trees, come knocking,
and I will answer, give you directions,
and let you warm yourself by this fire,
rest by this fire, and make you feel safe

I love you,

It’s all I have to give,
and all anyone needs to live,
and to go on living inside,
when the world outside
no longer cares if you live or die;
remember,

I love you.

Baca, Jimmy Santiago. “I Am Offering this Poem.” Immigrants in Our Own Land and Selected Early Poems. New Directions, 1990. Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.

“I Am Offering This Poem” Response

Prompt

I Am Offering this Poem

Writing Area

Instructions