Question

What is the buttonhook poem about?

Answer 1

Answer: The poem “The Buttonhook”, was created by Mary Jo Salter and it was published in 1982. Salter was born in 1954 and started writing poems around the 80’s, 90’s and early 2000’s. Salter wrote about the immigration process that took place in the 1920’s. She wrote this poem after she was inspired by a photo showing the eye inspection examiners gave to immigrants. One of the immigration stations was located on Ellis island. An infectious disease called Trachoma was an eye disease that often lead to blindness and it was quite common around this time period. To be cautious, the U.S government decided to examine immigrants for contagious diseases or stop them from entering America. To do the inspectors would pull back the eye lid using buttonhooks in order to check for the disease. This poem is presented though third person point of view. First the poem starts off by talking about how President Roosevelt viewed the inspection then the focus of the poem moves to the authors grandmother. The poet imagines the experience her grandmother would have had at the inspection. In the poem her grandmother is a young child observingher surroundings and waiting in the line to be cleared. Her grandmother is familiar with English and feels she can teach her parents, since they only speak Italian. The grandmother is also with her mom and she witnesses an inspector examine her mother's eye with a buttonhook. The inspector then went on to check her face and at this moment she felt that she has been blessed to come to America and that she can make it through the examination to see her father in New York.

Explanation:

Answer 2

Today's poem, “The Buttonhook” by Mary Jo Salter, was inspired by a National Archives photograph of Ellis Island showing uniformed inspectors examining newly arriving immigrants eyes. ... Put to a new use on Ellis Island, the buttonhook became a memorable part of many immigrants' journey to the United States.