A poet's life and the circumstances that surround it will affect their poetry. Poetry often speaks of the experiences of a poet's life, and of the feelings that are felt within that experience. Arthur Rimbaud, a 19th century French poet led an unusual life. His poetry reflects upon the moments in his life that are very meaningful to him. Some of his poems seem to be just as unusual as Arthur himself. Arthur began writing poetry at the young age of fifteen, when he fled from his home to Paris. During his time in Paris, Arthur wrote many poems that were later published worldwide. The poems, After the Flood, and The Lice Seekers are both filled with excessive emotion and imagery. Arthur's poetry could be interpreted in many different ways from different perspectives.
After the Flood, a poem from Arthur Rimbaud's The Illuminations, paints a vivid picture of a terror that has flowed through the streets right before his eyes and has finally seized to an end. The central idea of the poem lies within the first stanza. It says, "As soon as the idea of the Flood had subsided, a hare paused... and said a prayer to the rainbow through the spider's web." This line begins the poem with the thought that everything has finally passed, and by the hare praying, there is hope that it won't come again. In the next few lines of the poem Arthur gives a detailed description of what has happened throughout the town. The line, "Blood and milk flowed," chills your heart at the thought of such a thing happening. He's trying to give a vision of the horror and sadness that these people have endured throughout this time. Then he goes on to say, "Beavers did their building. Glasses of black coffee steamed in the cafes," almost as if everything is going back to normal since the flood has subsided. The most significant line in this poem is the ending. Arthur Rimbaud leaves his readers with a great deal of doubt as to whether their interpretation is correct. The last line of the poem is as follows, .".. and the Queen, the Sorceress who kindles her coals in the earthen pot, will never be willing to tell us what she knows, and what we do not know." I feel as though the Queen, the Sorceress that he is referring to is Mother Nature.
Many poets use different literary devices in poems to express their ideas and thoughts in an artistic way.
Poetry is something that is to be read delicately and cautiously if one wanted to find meaning through the words. Readers have to be gentle and patiently ponder about what they are reading in order to find any significance in the poem. If someone is not patient with reading, they will not feel impacted by poetry and will not want to read it. In Billy Collins’, “Introduction to Poetry,” he uses figurative language to help readers see that the way to enjoy and understand poetry is by reading between the lines and being patient with how each individual relates to the readings.
Poetry is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and rhythmic qualities; it is solely used to evoke emotive feelings in the reader in which to convey a message or story. This form of literature has a long history dating back thousands of years and is considered a literacy art form as it uses forms and conventions to evoke differentiating interpretations of words, though the use of poetic devices. Devices such as assonance, figurative language, alliteration, onomatopoeia and rhythm are sometimes used to achieve a musical and memorable aspect to the poem. Poems are usually written based on the past experiences of the poet and are greatly influenced by the writer’s morals values and beliefs. Poetry regularly demonstrates and emphasises on the
Archibald MacLeish was always a loner. Although he married he was always wondering about man’s relationship to the world. He wondered why people could not see that they were wasting the little time we have on this earth. He tried to show in his poems “the reality of the emotions that words cannot describe.';(Falk 27) Often he would include in his poems laws of nature and physics which gave him a unique style.
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.”
Understanding poetry as a criticism of life, Arnold uses it as his platform to wage a battle against the personal havoc that was wrought by the new age. Thus, Arnold captures the essence of the Victorian Era through his poetry by addressing the intellectual concerns of his time, especially about religion, science, and the inner turmoil that believing in the two caused.
Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the
Poetry is literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feeling and ideas, by the distinctive style and myth. It relies on different devices such as assonance, themes and even the tone to be successful. Even though many poems seems to be different, in some way they have similarities.
Levine was eighteen years old before he realized that poetry had meaning and that he could relate it to his life. A woman gave him a copy of "Arms and a Boy" by Wilfred Owen. After reading it, he saw that the people involved had real feelings and issues just as he did. This was when his love for poetry began. Unlike many other poets, Levine writes about common, everyday, subjects that all people have to deal with.
in his poetry can be some what difficult to comprehend at times. Once it is
Peoples’ personal life experiences usually affect the topic of their work. John Keats was a famous poet who grew up in an idyllic life until tragedy continuously stroked until his death at twenty-five years old. At eight years old, his father died in a tragic riding accident. Six years later, his mother died of tuberculosis (TB). In the midst of his troubles, his teacher strongly encouraged his reading and literacy ambitions. Living next to an insane asylum, Keats eventually started to develop physical and emotional problems. Diagnosed with TB, Keats helplessly watched his beloved brother die from the final stages of the same disease. Furthermore, he was unable to marry his fiancée, Fanny Brawne. Drawing from his individual experiences, Keats wrote very vividly about the pains and suffering he was going through. He expressed his unfulfillment as a writer, his love and struggles, the fleetingness of life and happiness, and his inner conflicts. Jack Stillinger writes, “It is this combined experience of suffering, death, and love all at once, against a background of serious conversation, reading, and thinking, that accounts for Keats's sudden rise to excellence in his poetry” (qtd. in Everett). All of Keats’s life experiences combined to make works of arts that could only be inspired by individual human experiences. John Keats’s background directly affects the topic of his works in order to realistically articulate his feelings in poetic form.
In her biography, it says, “As the daughter of a Chippewa Indian mother and a German-American father, Erdrich explores Native American themes in her works…” (“Louise Erdrich” 1). Because she had had a close connection to Native American society, it is a good basis for exploring and creating works that relate to her past, such as this poem. Metaphorically, the flood that ruins the village symbolizes the incoming Europeans, settling in the homelands of Native Americans. The trees knocked down by the flood represent the resisting Native Americans. The metaphor that this poem indicates can also be shown by the poetic devices used throughout the poem, such as personification and
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet in the late eighteen hundreds. He composed many short poems that didn’t necessarily rhyme. Most of his texts allow for several interpretations. The poems were concentrated around feelings of melancholy, ideas of beauty, happiness, and the desire to escape reality. Baudelaire uses these notions to express himself, others, and his art.
In conclusion, I feel poets mainly write poems to express feelings, thoughts, and messages to the world. It’s an easy approach for them to use this writing technique as a way to articulate different aspects which could be improved in this world. I think what attracts people to poetry is writing which relates to each person in their everyday life no matter how it could be portrayed by. For some people poetry could be a relaxing thing or it could be something which cheers someone up, but people look to poetry to get a deeper thinking in life rather than a simpler thinking. This is clearly evident through authors, William Wordsworth and William Blake, and their poems “The World is too Much with Us” and “The Tyger.” Both poems related to one another one way or another, and they depicted different messages and themes which do relate to real life situations.
Poetry expresses a state of mind, point of view, or draws a picture for the audience. Poetry describes situations, a person, a place or a thing. Poetry can interpret, create emotion, have hidden, indifferent, or symbolic meanings. A rhythmic pattern is typical in poetry. Poetry is part of literature and a form of language across cultures. Poetry can be dark and mysterious, or evoke wonderment and love. It can also explain the author’s frustration of a circumstance which cannot be changed, as the Sherman Alexis poem, “On an Amtrak from Boston to New York”. Sherman Alexie, a Native American activist and author, exemplifies his poem as his point of view. The speaker’s state of mind depicts resentment, prejudice and muted aggressiveness.