Love In Place Poem Analysis

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The poem Love in Place by Nikki Giovanni (Barnet, Burto, & Cain, 2011) is a look back at a person’s past, critically contemplating whether she ever did fall in love. Looking at the overall poem the theme appears to ask the question as to whether or not love really was a part of her life. Love can be so subjective even to the same person. For example, even in this short poem Nikki seemingly crosses over generations looking back over old photographs. Her thoughts and feelings seem to contradict at times almost as if she is losing her memory. Nikki either expressly loved to cook and bake or loved to eat. She talked about food more than anything else in the poem. Certainly she connects food and love in some fashion. This analysis expresses the…show more content…
Kind of like saying she loved those things more than the love of another person. The way she wrote she wanted to bake corn bread and boil ham gives a sense of jumping out of bed in the morning saying ‘Cannot wait to get in the kitchen and start cooking’. Cooking can be a great joy for some people like to those who consider themselves foodies. Most of the foodie community finds the companionship of another person while cooking to elevate the experience, which could translate to love. The idea of loving what you do could seem to surpass the love of another person for some. However, Nikki writes on and uses the image of smoking cigarettes to help her contemplate or think about her lover. Often in movies one or both couple will have a cigarette after sex. The use of this imagery in the poem suggests the idea of sexual love. This also suggest a longing for a return to the time in her life Nikki thinks was her and her lover’s best love. Even if this means the love comes in the form of sexual intercourse. This kind of love, while extremely passionate at times, could also lack a certain intimacy found in true love. In other words sex is a part of love, not the other way

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