Yasmien Iroy

LITERARY ANALYSIS: Agua de Viuda by Jhoanna Lynn Cruz

"Agua de Viuda" is a poem written by an award-winning writer from Mindanao, Jhoanna Lynn Cruz. The poem's title translates to "Widow's Water" in English. Cruz's work, written from the perspective of a widow seeking love and devotion, was able to express its primary message and touch the hearts of its readers. The author used symbolism, imagery, figures of speech, and the other elements of poetry that helped her convey her intended perception and message to the readers, which the readers understood. The use of the details helped her define the terms she used and set an impression on the readers. Her use of figures of speech gave the poem more rhetorical effect and made it seem more impactful to its readers.

Poetry is another type of literature that uses a focused, lyrical arrangement of words to express a message, depict a scene, or tell a tale. Poets write to communicate ideas, express emotions, and generate imagery (MasterClass.Staff, 2021). Word choice refers to the words that a poet chooses to employ in her poems. Because poetry is such a short medium, word choice is crucial (SoManyBooks, n.d.). There are words and terms of another context that are hard for the readers to understand in the text. However, the author was able to define the talk by stating examples and defining the word itself. The term "viuda," as described in the poem, meant a woman alone who had to bury her husband, or more straightforward, a married woman whose husband is dead- a widow in English.

Additionally, the author added the old meaning of the word too. The author included that the Sanskrit term for "viuda" is "vidhwa," which means solitary, isolated somewhere. In the poem, the author defined and gave a referential example of the word for the readers to understand. The author gave her grandmother's story or experience as an example of a viuda. Given this, we can infer that the poem was well-thought and intended to make the readers understand every word of it. From the definition and the examples given, the author was able to do a great job. 

Poetry, another type of literature, contains elements that help it become more meaningful and impactful in a different way from other forms of literature. One of the elements per se is the figures of speech. It is a term or phrase used to create an effect. This impact can be rhetorical, as in the purposeful arrangement of words to generate a poetic effect, or imagery, as in the use of language to evoke a visual image or make a concept more vivid. Figures of speech, in general, serve as literary techniques due to their expressive use of language (2020). The use of a figure of speech is evident in the poem's first stanza. In comparing one object to another, the author applied a simile by utilizing the term "like." It is evident in the line, "for teasing me I smell good fragrant like of viuda," wherein the author compares the smell of the character narrating the poem to that of a viuda and "treating on grief like the wife of bath" in the last stanza. The use of personification is also in the poem. It is another figure of speech involving a non-human or an inanimate object given human characteristics. In the line "perhaps it is the burst of Jasmine on a night spent dwelling on a mistake," the author gave Jasmine, a flower, a human characteristic of dwelling on a mistake at night.

In the second stanza, the story's character states that her grandmother is the only widow she knows. She also says that her grandmother spent her time playing cards with her neighbors until she passed away two years later on the birth anniversary of their grandfather. However, people said that it was a sweet ending. Death is the irreversible action of passing away of any living thing, and love is a powerful weapon in the life of married couples. People consider her grandmother's death as a sweet ending because some might say the souls of her grandparents reunited at last in the afterlife. It's lovely for some because it is the rebirth of new love for them. However, for me, the ending of her grandmother was sweet because she passed away on the birth anniversary of her husband. It's like she went away to celebrate his birthday with him in the afterlife. 

The whole poem revolves around the characteristics of a widow, with the narrator telling the audience that she is a widow herself. However, her definition of a widow is different from the word's actual meaning. As defined by the author of the poem herself, a widow is a woman whose husband is dead. It is someone whose spouse is deceased and is now alone and usually has not remarried. The character in the poem stated that she did not bury her husband, nor did she want to. From that line alone in the first stanza, we can infer that the character is not an actual viuda or widow.

Overall, the poem is easy to understand because of the author's skills in using the correct word choice and the different elements of poetry. The author conveyed her message to the readers, and the whole piece of poetry itself is something I consider a work of art. The words that are usually confusing to some readers, especially those who do not understand the language, were easily defined by stating an example illustrating the word itself. This piece of literature is a remarkable piece of the 21st century and is an excellent addition to the literature of our country.