Elements of Coming Together

         What made Gerald Stern’s poem, Columbia the Gem, stand out was its use of alliteration and metaphor to propel the central message forward. The poem’s main message is that everyone should open up their hearts and be more accepting of those who are different. Within the poem the author uses people of different nationalities, Germans and Puerto Ricans, to say that the two should both work together to navigate a foreign territory. The first two lines of the poem play with the L sound when Stern writes about the "Low Library... lower than the left one, the lotion sea lotion." The alliteration in the first two lines really emphasizes what is happening in the poem without having to include a lot of detail. The alliteration lets the reader know that what the poem is saying there is very important. The important point that is being made is that in America everyone is a foreigner whether they’re from a land of beaches or opulent architecture. Further down in the poem a metaphor is used in order to grasp a better understanding of the poem’s meaning. The line that contains the metaphor says, “now the Puerto Ricans can work up another funny American and the frightened Germans can open their heavy doors a little.” The metaphor is saying that people should not be afraid of what is new or different and instead open up to accept different types of people. The alliteration that starts the poem makes way for a closing metaphor in order to make the poem’s message clearer. This poem is a perfect example of how different elements work together to form a cohesive, purposeful poem.