Introduction to Poetry Analysis
“Shake the Dust” by Anis Mojgani
The poet Anis Mojgani uses a lot of very descriptive language in his
poem “Shake the Dust” to convey an image to the people listening or reading. He
also uses many of the poetic devices that we have been taught in school to make
his poem have a more profound effect on the people experiencing it. The first
example of such a device is one that repeats several times throughout the poem,
utilizing the device of repetition. Whenever the phrase “Shake the dust”
appears in the poem, it is almost a pause between stanzas, causing the audience
to really take in what they had just heard and think about what he was saying.
The term itself, at least in my opinion, is also a metaphor. “Shake the dust”
could mean to shake up your life, and not to let it settle, meaning not to let
your life settle into some monotonous groove that seems to present itself to
you. People must shake the dust of their life to find new opportunities and
experiences that would not just come to them; they have to seek them out. The
second device that I would point out is an allusion to two people that exist in
real life. He references Mick Jagger and Tina Turner, which could possibly
represent the one song that they sang together on, which was “Gimme Shelter” by
the Rolling Stones. The song is about war and horrendous crimes, and partially
drugs as well. When Mojgani references the two people, he could be meaning that
it’s for the people who have lived through what that song talks about. The
third such device is a metaphor that is towards the end of the poem. When
Mojgani says “so when the world knocks at your front door / clutch the knob and
open on up”, he is using the world knocking at the door as a metaphor for when
things seem to be too intense to handle, like too much is piled on top and you
feel like you just can’t take it, that you just have to accept it with open
arms and confront it or else you’ll never become the person that you’re meant
to be and you’ll be stuck in whatever rut you’re in until the day you die.
The first line that I would cite to express the poem’s thematic
statement is “do not let a moment go by that doesn’t remind you that your heart
beats 900 times a day”. Though the heart doesn’t actually beat once every two
minutes, this line strikes me as one of the ones that stick in the mind even
after the poem is finished. It means to never forget that you’re alive, and
that your body is even reminding you that you’re living about 0.625 times per
minute (realistically about 70). It is a reminder to never let that “dust”
settle and to continue to live life to the fullest and not let stereotypes or
anything pin you down to one specific thing. The second line that I would cite
is “so grab the world by its clothespins and shake it out again and again”. In
this line Mojgani is referring to the world in terms of something like a rug
that must be shaken out to get the dust out. This basically summarizes the
point of the poem, because he is saying to not let your life settle into some
form that doesn’t satisfy you, no matter who you are, you can still shake up
your life and re-invent yourself to become whoever or whatever you want to be.
The last line that I would cite is “for those families who will never be like
the cleavers / with perfectly made dinners and sons like Wally and the beaver”.
This line summarizes for whom this poem is being told. Mojgani spends the
entire poem saying who it is for, but this line, in my opinion, is the most
interesting choice to summarize them all with. It means that this is being told
for the people who don’t have the “ideal life” with a perfect family, a good
job, and lots of money. The Cleavers were the family in the television series
“Leave it to Beaver”, and they basically had it all set. This line makes
it known that this poem is for all of
those who don’t have the Cleaver’s lives, but who wish to approach it, telling
them that they must shake up their lives and not wait for opportunity to come
to them, because it never will. They have to go find it themselves.
My idea of the theme of the poem is pretty much said in its’ title. It
means that one must “Shake the Dust” of their lives if they’re not happy where
they are. Dust only forms on surfaces that aren’t moving, so why not shake off
that dust and progress towards something new, something exciting, something
that will actually create a sense of fulfillment that will make life worth
something. It also means that one cannot just sit and wait for new
opportunities to come to them to change their lives, because one must search
them out themselves and discover for themselves what exactly it means to be
them. I agree with the statement wholeheartedly, and think that Mojgani makes a
great point with this poem. He encourages people to make something of
themselves, no matter what cards life has dealt them so far, they can always
shuffle the deck.
-Rory O'Loghlin
