Identity

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1977

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

Freedom and Constraints

In “Identity,” freedom is often associated with weeds that “stand alone, strong and free” (Line 21), while constraint is associated with flowers. In the second stanza, the speaker compares a weed to “an eagle wind-wavering above high, jagged rocks” (Lines 5-6). The flight of the eagle exists in stark opposition to the “harnessed” flowers, which are unable to take care of themselves (Line 3). The juxtaposing structure of the poem sets up freedom and constraint as binary opposites. Weeds are associated with freedom while flowers are associated with constraints.

The way the poem depicts freedom versus constraints, however, is not entirely clean. The extended metaphor of the weed as a free agent might appear problematic, but it nevertheless enriches the poem. Weeds are no more or less mobile than flowers, of course, and even though the weeds may spread their “seed […] beyond the mountains of time” while the flowers are cultivated (Lines 9-10), they nevertheless are restrained by their roots in their lifetime, just like the flowers.

If one compares the types of freedom enjoyed by the cliffside weed and the eagle in the second stanza, there is a comic effect. When the speaker says the weed is “like an eagle,” they are either mixing their metaphors or forcing the comparison, because there are very few ways that a weed can experience similar freedom to an eagle. The weed is by definition rooted, while the eagle is capable of flight. Only the weed’s soul and seed are capable of flying in this way, making the freedom itself metaphorical. In fact, the flowers may get closer to the eagle’s flight when they are “plucked / by greedy, human hands” (Lines 17-18). This metaphorical flower flight is passive, but so is the flight of the weed’s seed, as it gets carried by “the breezes of an ancient sea” (Line 10).

Based on the incongruities of a literal interpretation, “Identity” asks readers to stretch their imaginations in order to embrace the poem’s central metaphors. By comparing weeds to eagles, Noboa Polanco suggests that even things considered useless or ugly by traditional standards are nonetheless worthy of freedom. The definition of beauty is not absolute, but something considered a weed will perhaps never have a chance to “soar” if it’s counted out or dismissed based on preconceived notions of worthiness or beauty. The only real constraint, Noboa Polanco’s poem suggests, is the constraint placed on freedom. In this sense, Noboa Polanco’s poem actually deconstructs what both freedom and constraint mean. “Identity” asks readers to redefine freedom and to push back against constraint.

The Dangers of Dependence

The poem’s speaker spends quite a lot of time explicitly detailing the benefits of being a dependent flower. Unlike the weeds, the flowers are “watered, fed, guarded, admired” (Line 2). While these benefits are desirable, and the benefits of being a weed in the poem are often abstract and hard to pin down, the poem’s dismissal of the flowers indicates that there are further dangers to the conformity necessary to be a flower. There are major dangers inherit in this dependence beyond the accompanying lack of freedom.

Dependency requires someone to have power over you, it requires you to be dependent upon someone or something. If this power is benevolent, there may not be cause for concern. However, the food, water, and protection the flowers receive from their caretakers is not a gift but part of a transaction. Not only are the flowers expected to be “admired” (Line 2), as opposed to the “unseen” and “shunned” weeds (Lines 13-14), they are “handled, and plucked / by greedy, human hands” (Lines 16-17). The flowers, then, are not being grown for their own sake, but in order to be harvested by the same human caretakers that had previously protected them. This is why they are described as “harnessed” to the pot like a beast of burden rather than simply being planted (Line 3). The flowers may be dependent by choice, but that choice benefits their caretakers more than it benefits them.

Dependence, the speaker seems to say, is a transaction. Even if someone helps you, they will expect something in return, and that price may outweigh the benefits provided. In the extended metaphor, being a weed means being independent, and “stand[ing] alone, strong and free” (Line 21). In this sense, the ugliness of the weeds may be a benefit. They are undesirable and therefore not cultivated like the flowers. Instead, the weeds demonstrate an isolated, self-sufficient existence. The last two lines of the poem, however, suggest that dependence and independence may not be simple categories without overlap. The speaker says that if they “could stand alone,” they would “rather be a tall, ugly weed” (Lines 21-22). The phrase “If I could” suggests that this kind of independence may not actually be possible (Line 21).

The Creation of the Self

The search for self is an ongoing process for the speaker in “Identity.” The repeated phrase “I’d rather be” suggests that the speaker has not achieved their goals of being like the admirable weeds (Lines 4, 13, 19, 22). In fact, the speaker would not state that they would “rather be” something else if they had already become like it.

The second, third, and fourth stanza could be seen as the speaker’s lyrical attempts at self-construction. In the first stanza, they express a frustration they have with the way people live, and in the second, third, and fourth, they develop an alternative path that would lead them away from living in that frustrating, passive manner.

The third stanza, in particular, seems like an attempt to articulate a full account of a life well lived based on the speaker’s frustrations with larger society. First, they break “through the surface of stone,” or the social boundaries that are confining them (Line 7). This breakthrough allows the individual to escape a suffocating society and learn more about themselves, which they do when they are “exposed to the madness / of the vast, eternal sky” (Lines 8-9). This move from “madness” to an appreciation of the “vast, eternal sky” signals a coming to terms with oneself or perhaps a turning to God. Then, the weed spreads its seed, propagating both its ideas (soul) and its body (seed) on to further generations until, finally, it passes into the unknown afterlife, or the “abyss of the bizarre” (Line 12).

The speaker, satisfied with the plan they have laid out for themselves, goes on to affirm their decision by repeating the original “I’d rather be” three more times in the fourth and fifth stanza (Lines 13, 19, 22). The speaker has not yet achieved their goal, but they have laid the road map.