People on the Edge in Poems: Stealing, Hitcher, Education for Leisure and Laboratory
The four poems I chose were: Stealing, Hitcher, Education for Leisure
and Laboratory. The themes in each were: stealing - insanity and
theft, Hitcher - a hitchhiker and the truth, Education for Leisure -
death and arrogance, and in the laboratory - eccentricity and
paranoia. All of these poems deal with people on the edge. They all
have people who inflict pain or damage for pleasure or amusement.
The language in Laboratory is very old fashioned compared with the
other poems, which are relatively modern. It was written long before
the others but this language makes the poem harder to read and much
harder to understand. The poem is set in an old fashioned Laboratory,
full of medicines and poisons, and this is made clear by the vivid
description such as "faint smokes curling whitely" and "thou pliest
thy trade in this devil's smithy"
When this is compared with the language in Education for Leisure,
which is very modern and has no hidden references like in Laboratory
"the devils smithy" which talks about hell and the devils lair because
of all the potions and poisons in the laboratory. It is very ordinary
text with nothing exiting to mention, however the ideas mentioned are
very extraordinary. It is much the same in hitcher with no exiting
language but some interesting ideas. The one comment I have on hitcher
is the way answerphone is written in line 2 "the ansaphone is
ringing". This gives the audience the impression of a dialect or
accent.
Most of the poems are written in present tense by saying "I squash a
fly, I am a genius, I pour the gol...
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...e 3 "One more sick note, mister and you're finished, fired." This
sets the scene for the poem. There is a sense of mystery in the poem.
"the truth he said was blowin in the wind" But the most obvious theme
is boredom. "he was following the sun to west from east" shows the
fact he has nothing to do and doesn't care. Then, unexpectedly he
kills the passenger he picks up. The fact "didn't even swerve" shows
how proud he is of being able to kill someone without losing control
of his car. It now becomes clear he is insane and killed without
having any good reason and also showed no remorse for his crime "let
him out saw him in the mirror" is showing he doesn't care about what
he has just done.
In all four of the poems we are shown how different people can be
pushed to the edge in different ways, and how they deal with it.
From the very first word of the poem, there is a command coming from an unnamed speaker. This establishes a sense of authority and gives the speaker a dominant position where they are dictating the poem to the reader rather than a collaborative interacti...
to lend meaning to the poem beyond its existence as a work of historic fiction
to the powerful imagery she weaves throughout the first half of the poem. In addition, Olds
...gives this poem a high level of appreciation and an increased level of understanding for those who read it. Due to these features of this poem, the message of wanting to break away from the daily routine and being something special that Creeley wants to convey through the poem is successfully achievable for the reader without a need for in depth close reading.
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.
Despite the beauty described in the first few stanzas of the poem, it was the feeling of doubt and pondering that approached at the end of the poem that truly was the most thought provoking. Instead of just writing of beauty, Poets must realize that they may be leading people to false ideals, and in doing so that they may actually be causing individuals to believe in something that is nothing more than a dream. This realization makes the image of the questioning poet by far the most important in the piece.
The elements in the poem work very well together to help set the theme of this poem. The tone set the overall mood of the poem, so show that it was rushed but not in a chaotic way. The imagery helps to show us little details of the setting, which are very helpful. And finally, the figures of speech, help the reader to compare the scene to things they have experienced in their lifetime to fully understand the poem.
The Syntax of the poem helps with the theme as well. The sentences are pretty short so each word had to be thought about. There’s 19 sentences that she used to tell this story of a hopeless prisoner. Each word brings that feeling of melancholy. The sentences are structured to give a lot of information in a short amount of words. Syntax is very important in showing the
At times, a parataxis of a certain character in one part of the poem help explain
The two poems I have chosen to explain are Piano by D H Lawrence and
I believe that the structure of this poem allows for the speaker to tell a narrative which further allows him to convey his point. The use of enjambment emphasizes this idea as well as provides a sense of flow throughout the entirety of a poem, giving it the look and feel of reading a story. Overall, I believe this piece is very simplistic when it comes to poetic devices, due to the fact that it is written as a prose poem, this piece lacks many of the common poetic devices such as rhyme, repetition, alliteration, and metaphors. However, the tone, symbolism, allusion and imagery presented in the poem, give way to an extremely deep and complicated
To begin, the reader may gather that the poem has a very dark and saddened tone. Due to Lowell's vivid imagery, a mental image of a dark urban setting is created. It also seems very cold, with the mentioning of wind and nighttime. Readers may be able to relate to urban places they know, adding to the reality of the poem. Connections can be made. The imagery is left in such a way that the reader can fill in the gaps with their own memories or settings. Also, since the poem uses free verse, the structure is left open to interpretation. This makes the poem more inviting and easier to interpret, rather than reading it as a riddle. However, though simple in imagery, the poem still captures the reader's interest due to the creation it sparks, yet it never strays away from the theme of bei...
this poem. I believe it is mainly what the poem is about. To make the
This poem helps us to recognize and appreciate beauty through its dream sequence and symbolism. The poem opens with the Dreamer describing this
A raging title opens the poem, immediately the fire sparks and the reader’s mind is already set off, “One night in the desert” (1). The reader is given the time and location of the poem; with that first line we a get a sense of a calm and quiet night in the desert. Where as to what the title indicates, the first line gives a much more of calm and quiet understanding of the poem. “a poor Bedouin woman has this to say/ to her husband,”(2-3). This starts to run the shivers down the reader’s spine; it gives an idea but yet still keeps the reader clueless. Sets the a tone to the poem, now its relating back to the title and giving that connection between the title and of what the poem is about.