With the strength to conquer all, love is one of the most powerful emotions out there. It pushes through thick and thin when it is real. The song “Halo” by Beyonce and the poem “I Am Offering This Poem” by Jimmy Santiago Baca both portray love in a great way. They have different ways of describing it, but they both show the strength and perseverance of true love. They have similarities in their themes, their use of personification, and their use of simile, but differ in their use of imagery.

First of all, The theme of a writing is very important to how someone interprets the information or opinion of the writing. Both of these have the theme of love and its power. They also show the theme in very similar ways. “I Am Offering This Poem” shows the theme by saying “It's all I have to give, / and it's all anyone needs to live, / and to go on living inside, / when the world outside / no longer cares if you live or die; / remember, / / I love you.” This shows that the writer loves the recipient of the poem dearly and will always care about them till the end of the earth. “Halo” shows the theme in a very similar way. “It’s like I’ve been awakened / Every rule I had you breakin’ / It’s the risk that I’m takin’ / I ain’t never gonna shut you out” shows that the artist has been captured, heart and soul, by the person they are in love with. It shows that love has a power to change some one’s way of thinking. Both of these themes capture the essence of being in love very well.

Another similarity between the song “Halo” and the poem “I am Offering This Poem” is their use of personification. They both use it to show that love is more powerful than anything, but the poem by Baca it is explaining it as being more of a comforting thing. In “I am Offering This Poem,” it says, “or like a pair of thick socks / the cold cannot bite through,” which is saying that the cold cannot bite through the thickness that a pair of “love socks” create. The use of personification in Beyonce’s is more of describing the strength of love and how it’s controling and goes against reality. In the song Halo, it says “Gravity can’t forget / To pull me back to the ground again.” This quote is more showing that love is more powerful than gravity in a sense that gravity can’t even pull her back down to “the ground” or to reality. These uses of personification are similar as they show love in a more descriptive way, but the way that they describe love is very different.

Along with personification and theme, there is a similarity in the way the two writings use simile. They both use it to show the comfort and warmth that love brings. In the poem by Baca, it says “I am offering this poem to you, / since I have nothing else to give. / Keep it like a warm coat, / when winter comes to cover you, / or like a pair of socks / the cold cannot bite through.” This portion of the poem “I Am Offering This Poem” shows that love is like a warm coat or a pair of socks, which is showing love to be comforting and warm. Like Baca, Beyonce uses simile in her song “Halo” when it says, “Hit me like a ray of sun / Burning through my darkest nights.” This is comparing love to a ray of sun that shows comfort and light in the darkest times. Both the poem and the song use simile to show that love has a comforting and warming power.

Although these poems show many similarities, the use of imagery is different for each writing. “I am Offering This Poem” uses imagery as a way to describe the poem itself, while “Halo” uses imagery as a way to describe the recipient of the song. “I am offering This Poem” uses imagery when it says “and in the corner of your drawer, / tucked away like a cabin or a hogan / in dense trees, come knocking” which is saying that the poem will be there for them when they’re lost. On the other hand, in the song “Halo,” it says “Hit me like a ray of sun / Burning through my darkest night” which is describing the recipient of the poem instead of the poem itself. It is saying that the recipient is helping lighten the darkest times of her life. Though both authors are using the imagery to further describe their subjects, the use shows how the poem and the song differ.

In conclusion, the poem “I Am Offering This Poem” by Jimmy Santiago Baca and the song “Halo” by Beyonce both show theme, personification, and simile in the same way. One difference between the two is their use of imagery. Their themes are like with the fact that they both portray it to be the power and strength of love. Their use of personification is also alike through the fact that they are using it to further describe the theme, which in this case is the same for the two writings. Another thing in common is the use of simile which they both use to show that love has a comforting and warming power. The difference between the two is the use of imagery. Baca uses imagery to describe love as more of a tangible item which is different from Beyonce when she uses imagery to describe it as more of a sight or visual with sight instead of touch. Though these two writings have things in common and have differences, they are both great portrayals of the strength and power of love.