Question

Please help me with this poem:

"Why I Could Not Accept Your Invitation" by Naomi Shihab Nye

I have to be able to list the subject/occasion/ audience/tone and I am not able to do that currently because I do not understand the poem.

Why I Could Not Accept Your Invitation

Besides the fact that your event
is coming up in three weeks
on the other side of the world
and you just invited me now,
your fax contained the following phrases:
action-researched oriented initiative
regionally based evaluation vehicles
culture should impregnate all different sectors
consumption of cultural products
key flashpoints in thematic area.
Don’t get me wrong, I love what you are doing,
believing in art and culture,
there, in the country next to the country
my country has recently been devastating
in the name of democracy,
but that is not the language I live in
and so I cannot come.
I live in teaspoon, bucket, river, pain,
turtle sunning on a brick
Forgive me. Culture is everything
Right about now. But I cannot pretend
a scrap of investment in the language
that allows human beings to kill one another
systematically, abstractly, distantly.
The language wrapped around 37,000,
Or whatever the number today,
Dead and beautiful bodies thrown into hole
Without any tiny, reasonable goodbye.

Naomi Shihab Nye

Answer 1

To be able to define who the subject is and what the occasion, audience, and tone is, it is strictly important to understand what the poem is about.

Step-by-step explanation:

The author begins the poem talking about an event she has been invited to. She slightly complains about how the invitation came late since this event is in less than a month and takes place on the other side of the world. But most importantly, her biggest discomfort lays in the content of the fax she received as an invitation. Some of the fax's sentences included how the event's organizers wanted to include culture in their agenda. The speaker doesn't disagree with this statement but also finds it quite hypocritical, because their "cultural view" will always be around pop culture. She continues the poem and stands up for small cultures and countries that are not in the media's sight and therefore, hidden from society. She thinks there are more important things to take care of than assisting to that event

With this in mind, it's not difficult to define the subject, occasion, audience, and tone.

-Subject: (what the poem is about) the point the author is trying to make is that people in our society should get out of their comfort zone and give importance to real problems all around the world.

-Occasion: (time, place and context of the piece) the context could be the 21st century since the poem criticizes how our society conceals big problems in third world countries, for example, and focuses on more mundane and shallow issues.

-Audience: (the readers to whom it is directed) people in western countries who are constantly bombarded by media content.

-Tone: (the author's attitude) would describe the author as polite, direct and raw. Very neutral (not negative nor positive)

Answer 2

That's the poem. The speaker says that the event she's been invited to looks as if it's going to be dealing with life and culture as a series of abstractions, as suggested by phrases like these. She is turning down the invitation because she prefers to deal with concrete reality, not with abstract concepts: She goes on to say that abstract language, abstract thinking far removed from the simple realities of everyday life, is something that allows people to dehumanize and kill each other.