A Poetry Comparison
The poem 'Mother, any distance', by Simon Armitage is from a
collection of poems titled 'Book of Matches'; it is meant to be read
in the time it takes a match to burn, and thus cannot be very long.
The poem is written in the first person, though it is not specific as
to whether it is from the perspective of a man or woman, which indeed
could be a result of deliberate ambiguity, or alternatively, it could
be Simon Armitage himself. The speaker, apparently in a house he or
she is about to move into, is measuring 'windows, pelmets, doors' with
their mother, who has 'come to help' as they need 'a second pair of
hands'. The technique of enjambment is used throughout the poem, and
rhyming couplets appear in the third and fourth lines of the first
stanza; 'doors' and 'floors'.
A sense of adventure is evoked in the last line of the first stanza,
with descriptions of seemingly normal and unremarkable things such as
'walls' and 'floors' including adjectives such as 'acres' and
'prairies'; this is also where the poem departs from direct reality.
These images of vast space indicate the speaker's excitement of
leaving home, and it is here that the theme of change is first
addressed within the poem. While the speaker's mother stands in the
same place holding one end of the measuring tape 'recording length',
i.e. taking responsibility, the speaker explores the house, 'reporting
metres'. Here the speaker is made to still seem very young and not
used to becoming completely independent, and is not completely sure of
themselves; 'back to base', showing that they still return to their
mother to make sure what they have done is r...
... middle of paper ...
...- 'Young...their bed'. By the time her work
is done, 'stars are…peep', showing how long she toils. The fire she
lights begins as a 'seed' in the morning, consequently growing, and at
the end of the day, 'the seed…and cold'. This could be a metaphor for
the loss of energy associated with old age.
All four poems address different forms of loss and change, and explore
them in different ways, and thus contrast to one another in different
ways. In particular 'On my first Sonne' addresses the emotions related
to loss, whereas 'Before You Were Mine' explores the physical aspect
of change by switching through tenses. Some contain similarities, such
as 'Mother, any distance…' and 'The Song of the Old Mother' in the way
they address age, but all use different techniques in the way they
explore the themes mentioned above.
In the prediction I can ignore the amount of time it takes to hit the
There are diseases in the world that we can touch and see and there are those which we cannot feel or see. Depression and suicide are one of the few that are not physical diseases but mental. Suicide is the 10th leading cause of deaths in America, and 20-25% of Americans eighteen and older have depression. The two poems ‘Summer Solstice, New York City’ by Sharon Olds, and ‘The Mill’ by Edwin Arlington Robinson are both discussing the different ways that suicide and depression can affect an individual. The first poem by Sharon Olds goes into details of suicide prevention whereas the poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson goes into the details of how suicide and death affect the loved ones of the deceased.
amount of time depending on the severity and the frequency of the instances. If not
on: April 10th 1864. He was born in 1809 and died at the age of 83 in
In today’s modern view, poetry has become more than just paragraphs that rhyme at the end of each sentence. If the reader has an open mind and the ability to read in between the lines, they discover more than they have bargained for. Some poems might have stories of suffering or abuse, while others contain happy times and great joy. Regardless of what the poems contains, all poems display an expression. That very moment when the writer begins his mental journey with that pen and paper is where all feelings are let out. As poetry is continues to be written, the reader begins to see patterns within each poem. On the other hand, poems have nothing at all in common with one another. A good example of this is in two poems by a famous writer by the name of Langston Hughes. A well-known writer that still gets credit today for pomes like “ Theme for English B” and “Let American be American Again.”
five minutes, peaks at about 20 minutes, and takes 24 to 48 hours to come back
Imagine you were the rose trying to grow in concrete; would you have made it out or die trying or maybe you just gave up. So think about it, what would you have really done? The poem “The Rose that Grew from Concrete” is about a rose that grew in concrete a metaphor that shows that you have to get past your problems to succeed. And the poem “Mother to Son” is about a mother explaining how hard life is a metaphor. Both poems share the theme of You have to rise above the obstacles, but the way the authors developed the theme was similar and different.
"Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal [but] which the reader recognizes as his own." (Salvatore Quasimodo). There is something about the human spirit that causes us to rejoice in shared experience. We can connect on a deep level with our fellow man when we believe that somehow someone else understands us as they relate their own joys and hardships; and perhaps nowhere better is this relationship expressed than in that of the poet and his reader. For the current assignment I had the privilege (and challenge) of writing an imitation of William Shakespeare’s "Sonnet 87". This poem touched a place in my heart because I have actually given this sonnet to someone before as it then communicated my thoughts and feelings far better than I could. For this reason, Sonnet 87 was an easy choice for this project, although not quite so easy an undertaking as I endeavored to match Shakespeare’s structure and bring out his themes through similar word choice.
Life carries us like a river just as our mother carries us as babies. In the poem "The Rio
In “The Man yoshu,” written by Chu, Harold Sung in 1974, the author conveys emotions and tells us something about the Japanese Culture. The main theme of the Manyoshu is love and the complications of loss and separation. The author shows this through two poems: “Thirteen Poems in the Praise of Wine,” and “A poem of Longing for His Children.” The two poems come from opposite sides of the class barrier, while speaking to the same issue: poverty and love. Both poems demonstrate the living people went through in Japan at those times. The characters in these two poems named above, handle situations different. Some get through it by ignoring the reality and some love unconditionally to make others feel appreciated and wealthy in emotions.
Robert Burns was a famous writer. He wrote two famous poems called, To a Mouse and To a Louse. In the poem to a Mouse, the mouse's home is destroyed by a plow in the middle of winter. In the poem to a Louse, a lady at church has a louse on her and a man sits there and watches it crawl around on her. These two poems have a deeper meaning than what the author is just writing about. In the poems, To a Mouse and To a Louse by Robert Burns, express three messages.
In his preface of the Kokinshū poet Ki no Tsurayaki wrote that poetry conveyed the “true heart” of people. And because poetry declares the true heart of people, poetry in the minds of the poets of the past believed that it also moved the hearts of the gods. It can be seen that in the ancient past that poetry had a great importance to the people of the time or at least to the poets of the past. In this paper I will describe two of some of the most important works in Japanese poetry the anthologies of the Man’yōshū and the Kokinshū. Both equally important as said by some scholars of Japanese literature, and both works contributing greatly to the culture of those who live in the land of the rising sun.
last for several days. Those between 1/4 inch and 1/2 inch in diameter are less
Both, the poem “Reluctance” by Robert Frost and “Time Does Not Bring Relief” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, revolved around the theme of lost love. Each poet used a similar array of poetic devices to express this theme. Visual imagery was one of the illustrative poetic devices used in the compositions. Another poetic device incorporated by both poets in order to convey the mood of the poems was personification. And by the same token, metaphors were also used to help express the gist of both poems. Ergo, similar poetic devices were used in both poems to communicate the theme of grieving the loss of a loved one.
forced to watch one of his men die after failing to put his gas mask