Sunday Mornings Oscar Penaranda Analysis

In the poems “Sunday Mornings” by Oscar Penaranda and “Some keep the Sabbath” by Emily Dickinson, the speakers challenge the idea of traditional worship by reflecting on how they perceive God in nature. Neither speaker feels it is necessary to attend a traditional church with a congregation in order to have a strong faith. Both poems utilize impassioned diction, auditory imagery, and figurative language to express the speakers’ attitudes.
The diction is “Sunday Mornings” is picturesque, whereas the diction in “Some keep the Sabbath” is simple. In Penaranda’s poem, the speaker states anyone who doubts his faith has “barbaric gall” (line 19). “Barbaric” gives the negative connotation of an unlearned savage, which emphasizes how he views the judgement of his style of worship offensive. This contrasts with the simple diction in Dickinson’s poem, where the speaker easily claims, “Some keep the Sabbath going to Church-/ I keep it staying at home” (lines 1-2). The tone is more easygoing about the speaker’s spiritual life instead of defensive, like in “Sunday Mornings.”
Both speakers mention the sounds of church bells to highlight how detached they are from the customary forms of worship. The speaker in “Sunday Mornings” describes how the sounds of nature “is music” (line 12) which helps “drown the chimes of distant chapel bells” (line 13). In “Some keep the Sabbath” the speaker declares “instead of tolling the Bell for Church,/ Our little Sexton- sings” (lines 7-8). Furthermore, the speaker also replaces conventional religious music for the sounds of nature; she uses “a Boblink for a Chorister”