Ego Tripping

Ego Tripping
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Giovanni uses the Egyptian allusions and other African historical events, the female gender role and people to explain and reflect the meaning of the title. Ego means a self conception and obsession and pride with themselves or country. Tripping means acting out or freaking out in a situation. As the reader, one guesses that the speaker is Giovanni. But, the speaker really is unknown and is a soul of someone’s perception on their country, belief and land. The poem enters with a stanza, saying, “I was born in the congo/ I walked to the fertile crescent and built the sphinx/I designed a pyramid so tough that a star that only glows every one hundred years falls/into the center giving divine perfect light/ I am bad.” The speaker sets the poem in Africa, the first civilization. The speaker reflects upon the environment and architecture in Africa. The Fertile Crescent is a region of a shape of a fertile crescent that contains a moist climate and lane for farming. This is located in the North Africa, near the Nile River. The speaker also describes the sphinx, which is a lion with a human head structure in Egypt. The speaker most importantly points out the pyramids in Egypt, which represent the pyramids of Giza. Theses pyramids were built for pharaohs to live and rest in for their death. The speaker ends this stanza with “I am bad”. Bad in this sense means good and owns to the title of the poem Ego Tripping to convey that he/she is the paramount. The speaker then discusses more allusions Egypt and spiritualism by discussing the throne, nectar with Allah, Nefertiti and the Nile. The throne and the heir to the throne were, in this case pharaohs of Egypt. Allah is the higher power of Islamic faith. Nefertiti one of the first recognized queens’s of Egypt. The third stanza is where the speaker discusses biblical stories and historical stories. The speaker says, “I gave my son Hannibal an elephant/ He gave me Rome for mother’s day.” Hannibal was the North African Leader of Carthage. The Carthaginians fought the Romans in the Punic Wars. This important event is where they discovered elephants. In this case, Carthage defeated Rome and bought the land from them. The speaker then says, “My son Noah built new/ark”. The speaker highlights this event to suggest that her son is Noah who built the ark and helped him save civilization. The speaker creates the allusion and self-conception that she recreated herself into the creator. The style of the poem lacks rhythm, rhyme or a pattern. In the last couplet, there however is a sporadic rhyme. She says, “I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal/ I cannot be comprehended except by my permission/ I mean…I…can fly like a bird in the sky..” The speaker ends with the poem by ending with the allusion that she can fly and has supernatural powers. Giovanni also promotes arrogance to suggest that the woman gave birth to the civilization and that she is in the higher supernatural power. In religion, one thinks of their divine belief as a male spirit, instead of acknowledging the woman who gave birth to the generation.She also suggest that she is perfect, divine, ethereal and surreal. In beliefs and faiths, the person with those characteristics is the higher power in religion. She suggest to the reader that she has supernatural powers to convey magical realism.  The title Ego Tripping was reflecting the spiritualism and a sense of nationalism for someone personal opinion about their country. The poem also highlights the perception of the out-spoken speaker’s perspective on their color, land, people, gender and faith.