Identity

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1977

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Poem Analysis

Themes

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Literary Devices

Further Reading & Resources

Related Poems

"Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman (1892)

American poet Walt Whitman’s influential Song of Myself is a notable precursor to Noboa Polanco’s “Identity.” This version of Whitman’s poem was completed in 1892, only one year before his death. Like Noboa Polanco, Whitman uses free verse, anaphora, romantic sentiment, and segments of lyrical fancy to create and assert an identity through poetry. Noboa Polanco also follows Whitman in extolling the virtues of common natural phenomena. In Section 32 of the poem, Whitman’s speaker envisions insects as divine, for instance. Throughout Song of Myself, Whitman praises common individuality over idealistic heroism.

"The Sensitive Plant" by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1820)

Unlike the American Romanticism of Noboa Polanco and Whitman, Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “The Sensitive Plant” came from the tradition of English Romanticism. While Shelley uses similar botanical metaphors to those in “Identity,” the tone of Shelley’s poem is more constrained and sentimental. Part of this is due to the formal constrictions typical of European Romanticism. The titular plant in Shelley’s poem shares many features with Noboa Polanco’s flowers: It needs to be taken care of and is opposed to “ugly weeds” (Line 213). But Shelley envisions the plant’s sensitivity as a positive rather than a negative, and in this way it contrasts well with Noboa Polanco’s poem.

"Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou (1978)

Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise” is roughly contemporary to Noboa Polanco’s “Identity” and contains a similar message of nonconformity and self-determination. Angelou, too, sees the rising of the individual, despite larger society trying to keep them down, as a natural phenomenon. She compares this rising to the inevitable rising of the moon, sun, and tides in Lines 9-10. While Angelou’s speaker is talking about the Black experience in her contemporary America, the poem resonates with a universal theme.

"I Am!" by John Clare (1848)

John Clare’s poem “I Am!” is another Romantic poem that explores individuality through poetry. Like Noboa Polanco’s “Identity,” Clare’s speaker understands that individuality and uniqueness can sometimes lead to isolation. However, Clare’s speaker sees things from the other side of that isolation, which can be even more limiting than conformity. Lines like “I long for scenes where man has never trod” (Line 13) also call to mind the mountain and cliffside scenery of Noboa Polanco’s later poem.

Further Literary Resources

"Civil Disobedience" by Henry David Thoreau (1849)

In the essay “Civil Disobedience,” Thoreau argues for a kind of non-conformity similar to that seen in “Identity.” The main point of Thoreau’s argument is that individuals have a duty to not allow governments to overrule their consciences through legislation and taxation. To Thoreau, the individual conscience is what determines what is right and wrong, not the larger society. The disgust that Thoreau expresses in the essay would very much make him a “weed” in Noboa Polanco’s poem.

"Missing Pages From the Human Story: World History According to Texas Standards" by Julio Noboa Polanco (2012)

This article, published in Journal of Latinos and Education in 2012, gives a sense of Noboa Polanco’s academic and advocacy work while a professor at the University of Texas at El Paso. The article investigates the teaching standards for schools in Texas. Noboa Polanco argues that world history courses across the state provide a biased and distorted account of history. Often, according to Noboa Polanco’s study, that account omits and underplays the significance of Mexico, Latin America, and other countries considered “underdeveloped” by so-called first-world countries.

"I say Hispanic. You say Latino. How did the whole thing start?" by Yasmin Anwar (2014)

In this interview, Anwar talks to UC Berkeley sociologist G. Cristina Mora about her 2014 book Making Hispanics. In the interview, Mora discusses the rise of Hispanic/Latino pan-ethnic identity in the 1970s, around the same time that Noboa Polanco’s “Identity” was published. Mora argues that the Hispanic/Latino identity is the product of activists, the media, and government bureaucrats trying to create a marketable identity for a diverse group of people. Like with the flowers in Noboa Polanco’s poem, people were expected to conform to this identity in order to gain political and social standing.