Gang Violence and Biker Gangs :: essays research papers

Gang violence is a major problem in our society today. Gang violence could take place in our neighborhoods and corrupt the young children easily influenced by the violent behavior as well. In the two poems, ?Leather-Jackets, Bikes and Birds? by Robert Davies and ?Street Gang? by H. Webster, the two poets write about gang related issues discussing the ill-mannered bikers who cause these problems to other around them. These poems discuss the violence, death and illegal activity in which a number of people participated in, which like reality is the problematic truth. Both poems are similar because their main intention is gang related violence issues in society today and the distinctive character of the darker side in human nature which causes the harmful consequences of a corrupt humanity. The communication strategies used by both poets are able to grasp the reader?s interest due to the fact that both poems have similar methods of word selection which is diction and are able to describe the psychological minds of aggressive behavior. The poem ?Leather-Jackets, Bikes and Birds? has sentences that describe the type of characteristics gang members have and illustrate their overall presence around others. For example when the poet writes, ?pretending they are looking for trouble demonstrates that the individuals of a gang gather not to enjoy themselves but to cause excitement among themselves for the wrong reasons. Another quote from the poem that describes the psychological mind of gang members is ?because you?ve got to be hard to be a leather-jacket this quote shows that gang members have a mind set that they must be tough, strong and overall powerful to gain their respect. Similarly, the poem ?Street Gang? the description of violence used and the defeat against law is well detailed by the actions caused by aggressive behavior. For example when the poet writes ?the law overthrown describes that the street gang members do not consider the law at hand and make a choic e based on their psychological mind structure and use forceful actions upon their victims. Furthermore, literary devices such as imaginary, alliteration, repetition, oxymoron, onomatopoeia, simile and parallel structure used in both poems displayed a greater understanding towards poetry and defined both as comparable poems. The poems ?Leather-Jackets, Bikes and Birds? and ?Street Gang? are not in rhyme and I believe both poets have formed the poems without rhyme because the tone of seriousness towards this issue was to be brought out to the reader?