Fascinations

In the poem Fascinations, the speaker uses standard poetry format to portray her message. The speaker uses first person, duality, and vivid imagery to help justify the meaning of the poem. She writes in stanza one “I prefer the streams” as opposed to “the falls and rapids”. Giovanni uses this metaphor to suggest that although the beauty and the feeling of reaching your destination are mesmerizing, she still prefers the journey of obtaining such goals. The metaphor also explains that being that rapids and falls can only fall one way she enjoys that, however; she also enjoys the idea of streams venturing off in many directions. The duality that is mentioned in stanza one in lines 9-11, represents the obstacles versus the triumphs during this “journey” or maybe it could represent the duality of emotion in male and female. In stanza two the speaker uses temperature to reassure the reader that she simply was waiting for someone to be there for her and "warm" her soul. This could be inferred by “I am cold no matter what the temperature”.  The speaker continues on with stating that “[she] knows she is on dangerous ground [because she] misread [YOUR] smile all year assured that YOU and therefore everything was all right. If the smile is misread, this could mean that something secretive laid behind the smile that was being given. Being that Giovanni is always gender specific, the reader can be surprised that she did not state whether or not this “you” was a man or a woman.  Dangerous, meaning risky could imply that Giovanni was playing with fire or that of the same sex. She continues to write “I wade from quiet of your presence into the turbulence of your emotions.” Wading or paddling means that this person slowly took Giovanni out of her comfort zone and entered a new world full of feelings, confusion, and very fast paced or “turbulent”. Giovanni concludes her poem with implying that she wouldn’t change anything about the experience because it changed her view on life. She feels as though things should be spontaneous and surprising which it what she states in lines 5-6 of stanza four.