Comparing Nothing(TM)s changed with Two scavengers in a truck, Two beautiful people in Mercedes

        “Hands burn

        for a stone, a bomb,

        to shiver down the glass.”

        The fact that he is describing himself as an ostracised child here is even more powerful as he makes the point that he has always felt like this growing up has not changed anything. The poem keeps referring the reader back to the title. In the first and second stanzas it is District 6 and the poet’s feeling towards it which haven’t changed , in the third and fourth it is the lifestyle of the whites and in the fifth the lifestyle of the blacks. This leaves the last stanza as the final link in this vicious circle. Reading the poem, I found it hard to disagree with the point he powerfully makes. The contrast he creates between the fine dining of the “linen” and “single rose” of the white’s only inn” and the “working man’s café” where the black people are forced to eat seems so unfair that I found myself feeling angry at the end of this poem.

        This was a similar experience to how I felt in “Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes” as the unfair reality of how different people living in the same area can live such different lives. Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote “Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes”. The poem highlights the differences between rich and poor and the working classes, as well as democracy and equality. The poem seems to be written in third person and based around two “garbage men” and two “beautiful”, rich people. The poem describes how they are held together at red lights and describes the differences in life style. The setting of the scene at the traffic light is very clever one as it makes the point that it is just about the only place where these two pairs of people would meet. Also, it enables the poet to construct a scene where the “garbage men” are “looking down” at the rich couple. I think there is a hint of humour in that phrase as the rich people would normally would be looking down at the “garbage men”. Although it is only in the sense that their truck is higher up. I believe this is where it symbolises what the poet thinks of rich people.

        I think this contrasts from “Nothing’s Changed” as it seems to be all very serious. As in “Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes” both pairs of people have jobs and have some status in society. Whereas in “Nothing’s Changed” black people have no status at all in society. At the end of “Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes”, the poet seems to ask whether America really is a democracy. This is a weird question because compared with South Africa; San Francisco is in a much better state. It seems to me that both places have once been cool places to live but have deteriorated over time.

        In conclusion, although both poets use a different tone, structure and style of language in their poems, they are both clear that they find it hard to tolerate the inequalities of the societies they live in.