”The Rose That Grew From Concrete” and ”And Tomorrow” by Tupac Shakur

Tupac Shakur wrote both these poems and the poems are about having ambitions and goals and reaching them despite the circumstances. There is also a theme of keeping hope in both the poems.

The Rose That Grew From Concrete is not really about a rose that grew from the concrete. The rose symbolizes a man and the concrete symbolizes the ghetto. A rose would never grow from concrete and by this he is meaning to say that it is really hard to survive the hard life of the ghetto and make something out of yourself. The second line means that the person has made something out of himself. “nature’s law” means that no one expected the man to survive and the ‘law’ was that no one could survive the ghetto and do something with their lives and so the man has proved this law wrong. “it learned without having feet”, this part means that he had no help and he made it all by himself. The third line means that because the man kept his dreams and was confident in his own abilities he was able to reach his goal. “fresh air” represents some where away from the ghetto where he is well-off and he is not in constant trouble and somewhere where he does not have a lot of problems. The last line he is praising the ‘rose’ because it made it through the hard time when there was no one to help it and no one cared about it.

And Tomorrow is a poem about hope. Tupac talks about how Tthe world is today but tomorrow there is still hope for a better future. The second line of the poem, says that people no longer want to take any chances and they no longer think independently because they are afraid of becoming different and getting thrown out of society. The next two lines are about how poor humanity is and how much tragedies there are in the world and no one is facing them and trying to find a solution to them. He goes on to say how children are being brought up, with “ruthlessness” and this is because they find no love at home. From line 9 onwards he begins to talk about ‘tomorrow’ and how there is still hope for every one. He sees a change in tomorrows world, “a chance to build a new”, where everything will be based on the heart and ideas on truth. Tomorrow is another day, another chance to make his dreams come true and this what he fights for, to keep his dream alive.

Both poems have hope in them. I like these poems because it shows me that even though the world is not a great place people still can do great things. This I learned from The Rose That Grew From Concrete. The rose defied the odds and proved itself to the world all by itself. The message Tupac was trying to bring through that poem was keep trying and focus on your dreams, don’t let anything get in the way. And Tomorrow tells me to never lose faith because tomorrow is a whole new day and anything can happen. It also tells me, like the poem The Rose That Grew From Concrete to keep your mind focused on your dreams and ambitions in life and never lose faith in yourself.

Both of these poems are personal and Tupac wrote these poems from his own personal experiences. At an early age he had to start dealing drugs, but he wanted to show the world the life he had lived and how many other people are living in poor conditions similar to his. He focused on those dreams and became a rapper, That’s when he could “breathe fresh air”. In the poem And Tomorrow, he talks about what he sees in the ghetto, how bad life is, how much violence there is and how there is no love at home. These are all personal experiences of his life. I admire him because he was like “the rose that grew from concrete”.