Class 12 English Poem I Was My Own Route

‘I Was My Own Route’ is a powerful poem written by Julia de Burgos, a renowned writer from Carolina, Puerto Rico, who collected the diverse experiences of a literary writer, journalist, and passionate freedom fighter. Her poems are famously full of racial and gender sentiments where she aggressively provokes the equality between male and female and the black and the white race. She has also been highly regarded as a contemporary Latino writer who depicts how women are heavily burdened with the patriarchal ideologies from the past. Therefore, de Burgos passionately urges women to detach themselves from the past so as to redefine their own true identity.

The poem ‘I Was My Own Route’ has altogether 6 stanzas. Each stanza deeply expresses the powerful feelings of the poet who is always remaining in a conflict between traditional masculinity and her own femininity. She begins her poem reflecting on her past feelings when she initially wished to convert herself to fit the wishes of men. In such acts, she found a frustrating hide and seek game between her own natural instinct and the forced instinct of the patriarchal society. This exact game inspired her to move forward to investigate a new path that is totally new for all women. Though it is highly challenging, she joyfully accepted it.

In discovering a new path, she moves alone mainly to get her internal happiness and a deep feeling of intimate liberation. She has described her journey to a new path beautifully where she faced a serious problem in balancing herself and the harsh truth of the time. However, she expresses her immense joy in discovering a new route of her life that has no pre-written history, even though she doubts its ultimate future. Anyways, she is happy enough living fiercely in the present and waiting for the response of time. To denote this, she has repeated a key line in the poem: “a game of hide and seek with my being but l was made of nows”. This refrain has perfectly captured the main essence of the poem. The poem is written in free verse and it is the perfect example of a poem representing the marginalized community.

The line “she was playing a game of hide and seek with her being” appears in the third line of the first stanza and is repeatedly emphasized in the last stanza too. Hide and seek is a common game played by children in which one player is blindfolded while other players hide in different places, and the blindfolded one tries to find them. “A game of hide and seek” is also used as a psychological idiom which means a situation in which one is constantly evading or partially avoiding the other.

In the poem Class 12 English Poem I Was My Own Route, the line “a game of hide and seek with my being” means that the speaker is actively trying to avoid the strict norms and limitations set by males for females. Men wanted her to be a submissive woman defined exactly by their standards, but as a modern and rebellious being, she was constantly evading and hiding her true self from male control until she broke free.

The Speaker states, “At each advancing step on my route forward, my back was ripped by the desperate flapping wings of the old guard” in the second stanza. She was walking fearlessly ahead on the new path of women’s liberation, actively challenging the rusty chains of male ideologists. Because she was advancing forward, the desperate flapping wings of the old guard were aggressively pushing her back.

The strict limitations and chains of patriarchal ideologies can be seen as the old guard aggressively obstructing her on her way forward to the intimate liberation of the women’s race. In her advancing steps forward, the old guard imposed severe threats, social punishments, and backlash (ripping her back) to force her into submission.

According to the speaker, she felt being truly free is like getting cherished, intimate liberation. It feels incredibly empowering, like she won her independent, standalone identity by being entirely free from all kinds of toxic social norms, limitations, and expectations imposed specifically on women by men.

The speaker highly prefers the present to the past because the situation of her past was utterly miserable. She was one of the many silent victims of male domination. Her family background was not so good, and she lived a life restricted by the patriarchy. Even one of her siblings died of malnutrition while she was living under the dark shadow of a male-dominated society.

But in the present, she has become an iconic person, a fearless pathfinder, and a powerful savior of the female race. She has permanently set a route for all the women who can now walk freely, pursuing their own unique identity. Because of this monumental breakthrough, she feels proud of herself in the “nows” and deserves the homage of the present.

John Donne (1572-1631) is a famous English poet and is considered the preeminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His famous quotation, “No man is an island entire to itself” means that no one is truly self-sufficient. Everyone must ultimately rely on the company and comfort of others in order to thrive. Donne heavily believes in societal co-existence.

Burgos, on the other hand, might aggressively disagree with Donne in the context of patriarchal society. Burgos wanted to completely avoid male existence in terms of getting liberation for women because the “mainland” of society was highly toxic to her. She wanted to carve out an independent “island” (her own route) to escape male oppression. However, if society were truly equal, they might agree.

Personally, I agree more with Donne in a broader sense. Males and females are equal, and the healthy co-existence of males and females shapes a true balance in society. Her concept of complete isolation is impractical in long-term reality; it is largely a poetic way to express her immediate, fierce race against male oppression. We are all interconnected, but that connection must be based on equality, not domination.

(Here is an example essay on the idea of freedom, written by Rita:)

My Idea of Freedom

Freedom—what a wonderful and powerful word! How much raw energy there is in it! How much opportunity, dream, and profound belief that only we ourselves determine our capacity to do something, to achieve new horizons, and to acquire new skills. I am sure that each and every one of us has his or her own personal definition for this word. Someone believes it to be somewhat ephemeral and unachievable. But somebody has it as a deliberate way of life, and for others, it is a desperate goal they crave with all their heart.

So, what is the core enigma of this seemingly simple word? What is true freedom? And what is the importance of freedom in our daily lives?

To me, freedom primarily means to be completely able to learn from my own mistakes. If I didn’t have personal freedom, I would have to mindlessly do what the top authorities or societal expectations always tell me to do. In such a rigid state, I wouldn’t have any room for making mistakes, so it would be infinitely harder to learn the true lessons about life.

Freedom also means having the adequate time and mental space to do things right. No freedom, in this case, would mean that I wouldn’t have any time for fantastic, clever, or creative thoughts. I would have to do things in an extremely precise, robotic, and quick manner to please others. When I don’t have freedom, I am under pressure constantly. While I am under so much external pressure, it makes it a much more stressful and miserable world to live in.

One last crucial example of my idea of freedom is being able to do many diverse things without being forced into doing anything against my will. No freedom means that I might have to enlist in a job or the army reluctantly. If I didn’t have freedom, I might have to get married at a very young age and start a family, which I have absolutely no intention of doing at my current age. My life minus freedom would equal being controlled in everything I touch. When I don’t have freedom, I can’t do anything except for what strict laws or patriarchal rules tell me to do.

In summary, we are incredibly lucky to be striving toward a society of freedom. Personal liberation, exactly like the poet Julia de Burgos fought for, allows us to carve our own routes. Just remember, we must fight to remain the land of the free and the home of the brave!