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Short essay on "impacts of war on literature
Literature affected by wars
Idea notes about the poem by carol anne duffy the original
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Critical Response
Carol Ann-Duffy & Sheenagh Pugh are both strongly opinionated politically – many of their poems are charged with a scornful, impassioned energy directed toward the Thatcherite days, resenting years of economic deprivation & ruin of many young lives in their generation – this sets the basis for a general distaste for politicians, illustrated in Duffy’s parody of parliament ‘Weasel Words’, mocking the meaningless socio-jargon that MPs use to wriggle and slither their way out of answering straight questions. The same jargon is used to greater, more realistic effect in Pugh’s ‘Official Briefing’ (a biblical parody of Jesus sacking the temple & casting out the money changers [Synoptic Gospels: Mark 11:15-19] & something of an exposé of the arrogant, above-the-law attitude synonymous with positions & abuse of positions of relative power in this country – such as Harriet Harman scraping another car in Marylebone, drove on, and upon being questioned by a member of the public to report her, was heard to remark “You know where I am, and where to find me” and drove away, implying she is far & beyond the law.) – Their approach to the theme & contextual emphasis differs. Pugh assumes a calmer, concluded air, laying out the rooted conservative - authoritarian attitude of these ministers – ‘clear contempt for law & order...Arrogant attempt to impose the whims of minorities upon...interference with private enterprise’. The parody is obvious, with the mention of the whip & the damaged property in question being mainly ‘currency & pigeons’, & dubbing him (Christ) a ‘disaffected itinerant’. This emphasises the ministers’ reckoning that they are aloof,. Duffy is more metaphorical and damning of the matter at hand, the very title ...
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...motional poetry, much of which is biased and embittered. Much of her poetry is insensitive – but not ineffective. ‘Shooting Stars’ seems to be set in a concentration camp (something I doubt Duffy has any experience of), and her use of indefinite, fragmented verse & scarce rhyme to convey the perpetual threat & faceless fear in the camp is powerful. The lasting anonymity of the narrator’s voice gives the verse poignancy as well as the tragic futile monologue, combined with the harrowing use of a metaphorical sunset – she is to die – this will be the last sunset, the onset of eternal darkness – There is no doubting the weight this poem carries. Duffy does not go as far as to be abstract or even observant here but she simply calms down a little, which lets a lyrical quality surface within her verse, which is not apparent in her other brash, misandry-fuelled works.
Ryan reminds us of the suggestive power of poetry–how it elicits and rewards the reader’s intellect, imagination, and emotions. I like to think that Ryan’s magnificently compressed poetry – along with the emergence of other new masters of the short poem like Timothy Murphy and H.L. Hix and the veteran maestri like Ted Kooser and Dick Davis – signals a return to concision and intensity.
Seamus Heamey begins the poem with an image of isolation, confusion, and the loss of safety. Heaney describes what happen the night that his cousin was killed:
When reading a story or a poem, readers tend to analyze, and develop their own opinions. Any content an author or poet produces is up to the reader to question, and identify what the story is trying to say. The point that I am stating is that, stories are like maps that we readers need to figure out. We have to find the starting point, and get to the destination of our conclusion, and the thoughts we have about the story or poem. In the stories that we have read so for throughout the semester, they all have different messages of what they are trying to convey to the reader in a way that can be relatable. Among all the author’s and poet’s works we have read, I have enjoyed Theodore Roethke’s poems. Roethke has developed poems that explore emotions that readers can relate to. I would like to explain and interpret the themes that Theodore Roethke expresses in the poems “My Papa’s Waltz”, “The Waking”, and “I Knew a Woman”.
Duffy expresses her detailed language and vivid structure presentation in a deliberate and poetic form. Her powerful techniques such as metaphors and a range of repetition convey the striking love that she is expressing. “Answer” is a metaphorical poem that expresses feelings and thoughts in an element address.
Many people may look at the same painting and all come away with their own understanding. Every person has their bias and preconceptions that will influence their personal experience. In this paper we will discuss how Anne Sexton described in a short poem her experience of viewing Vincent Van Gogh’s painting The Starry Night. We will observe how Anne Sexton’s poem based on Van Gogh’s painting speaks about death in darkness as the painting seems to emphasise the light in the darkness.
At the beginning of the poem, the speaker starts by telling the reader the place, time and activity he is doing, stating that he saw something that he will always remember. His description of his view is explained through simile for example “Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets of their branches” (Updike), captivating the reader’s attention
In this essay I will compare and contrast a collection of different poems by Carol Anne Duffy, Robert Browning, Ben Johnson and Simon Armitage.
In all poems the theme of Disappointment in love is seen throughout. Duffy focuses on the pain, despair and acrimony that love can bring, whereas Larkin focuses on the dissatisfaction before, during, and after a romantic relationship. Both Duffy and Larkin differ in tone. Duffy takes a more aggressive and dark stance to portray what love can do to a person after a disappointing love life. Duffy also uses this sinister and aggressive stance to try and convey sympathy for the persona from the audience in ‘Never Go Back’ and ‘Havisham’ Whereas Larkin conveys his discontent in love through his nonchalant and dismissive tone, but still concealing the pain that has been brought by love in ‘Wild Oats’ and ‘Talking in bed’.
The first half of the poem creates a sense of place. The narrator invites us to go “through certain half-deserted streets” on an evening he has just compared to an unconscious patient (4). To think of an evening as a corpselike event is disturbing, but effective in that the daytime is the time of the living, and the night time is the time of the dead. He is anxious and apprehensive, and evokes a sense of debauchery and shadows. Lines 15-22 compare the night’s fog to the actions of a typical cat, making the reader sense the mystery of a dark, foggy night in a familiar, tangible way. One might suppose that “In the room the women come and go/ Talking of Michelangelo” refers to a room in a brothel, where the seedy women for hire talk about elevated art between Johns (13). The narrator creates a tension in the image of dark deserted streets and shady activities in the dark.
Writing the poem in ballad form gave a sense of mood to each paragraph. The poem starts out with an eager little girl wanting to march for freedom. The mother explains how treacherous the march could become showing her fear for her daughters life. The mood swings back and forth until finally the mother's fear overcomes the child's desire and the child is sent to church where it will be safe. The tempo seems to pick up in the last couple of paragraphs to emphasize the mothers distraught on hearing the explosion and finding her child's shoe.
The ironic use of rhyme and meter, or the lack thereof, is one of the devices Larkin uses to emphasize his need to break out of industrial society. The typical rhyme scheme is not followed, but instead an ironic rhyme scheme is used in the sonnet in the form of abab cdcd efg efg. Larkin writes this poem as a sonnet but at the same time diverges from what a typical sonnet is supposed to be. He is commenting on society’s inclination to form restrictions on those within it. By writing out of the accepted form of a sonnet, his writing becomes more natural because of a lack of constraints due to following certain rules and fitting a certain form. He breaks free and writes as he pleases and does not conform to society. Just as with the rhyme, ...
‘London’ for instance describes the brutal exploitation of the church towards the civilians in the streets of London whereas Duffy’s poem Havisham similarly evokes heartache, loss but not murderous intention like Havisham does, after the narrator’s fiancé left her at the altar. However, the two poems explore in the depth the feelings of immobility and lack of control of their own lives which leads them to realise these changes that have been inflicted on them cannot be altered.
Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia, eds. An Introduction to Poetry. 13th ed. New York: Longman, 2010. 21. Print.
...lities of experiences and future that the lost lives might have had? Does the word “crammed” (27) stress that there were many potential futures in ready for them? Why does “the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile” (28)? Is “the poet” indicating Duffy? If so, then is she smiling because she feels satisfaction and joy through her articulation of the illusory lives of the dead veterans? Why does she repeat the first line of the first stanza in the next line? Is it to come to a conclusion? One difference is the incorporation of the word “truly” (29); does this imply a shift in the poem? Is the author coming back to reality that the history can’t be changed as she states “then it would” (30)? So, is the shift at the end of the poem an acceptance of the lost lives?
In all of her poems Grace Nichols explores a variety of themes such as immigration and emigration in her poem “Icons”. However in “Black” she also explores several other themes such as race and perception. In this essay I aim to determine whether or not “Black” is mainly a poem about skin colour or of it can simply be perceived as such.