Question

Read the following stanza from "I Am Offering This Poem," by Jimmy Santiago.


I have nothing else to give you,

so it is a pot full of yellow corn

to warm your belly in winter,

it is a scarf for your head, to wear

over your hair, to tie up around your face,

How would the tone of this stanza change if the poet replaced "belly" with "stomach"?

A. The tone would become less formal.

B. The tone would become more inviting.

C. The tone would become less caring.

D. The tone would become more formal.

Answer 1

The answer is letter D.

If the poet replaced "belly" with "stomach", the tone would become more formal, since the word "belly" is classified as being of informal nature even in dictionaries. Therefore, if Jimmy Santiago had used the word "stomach", he'd have sounded more formal and less close to the person to whom the poem was directed when written. It would have been as if he were giving some sort of medical advice, and the degree of intimacy and friendliness suggested in "to warm your belly in winter", would have been much lower.