The celebration of line seven is immediately contrasted in line eight with the statement that “no one else ever cared.” We might infer from the poem that the rose then is the Speaker himself. In lines seven and eight, the Speaker celebrates the rose that succeeded. The message in lines five and six is to persevere. Success here, in line six, is described as “learning to breathe fresh air.” Fresh air likely refers to an escape from the neighbor represented by the concrete. The Speaker attributes the success of the rose to the fact it kept its dreams.

In line five, the personification of the rose continues. The feet (or lack thereof) symbolize opportunity. Interestingly, though, by indicating that the rose does not have feet, he is saying by implication that the person represented by the rose also lacks feet. This lets us know that the poem is using them to represent a human being. The Speaker personifies the rose by indicating that it walks without having feet. In line four, we get more proof that the rose is a metaphor. By this, the Speaker means that a beautiful life-filled person should not be possible in the midst of such a bleak and life-oppressing location. The Speaker tells us in line three that the rose is growing in defiance of nature’s law. Concrete, conversely, is symbolic of lifelessness and a lack of beauty and it thus serves as a metaphor for a poor inner city neighborhood. Here the rose symbolizes life and beauty and serves as a metaphor for a person with those qualities.

Concrete represents the inhospitable neighborhood in which the person grows up. In the poem, the rose represents a person.

Shakur uses symbolism to and metaphor to convey a message about overcoming poverty. The Rose that Grew from Concrete is an eight line poem without a defined rhyme scheme. Long live the rose that grew from concrete To view more poems I have examined, click HERE.īy Tupac Shakur Did you hear about the rose that grewįunny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams,

2pac the rose