The Poetry of Tony Harrison
Tony Harrison is almost certainly one of the most famous poets alive.
Born in Leeds in 1937 he grew up in a working-class family. Harrison
is a modern poet but chooses to use the traditional sonnet form as he
considers the rigid structure and strict rhythm and rhyming rules
which others find restricting, a challenge to him. He also sees it as
a controlled technique of expressing his feelings. Francesco Petrach
began using the sonnet at the beginning of Renaissance with his
unusual rhyming pattern and stanzas of an octave and a sestet.
Harrison's sonnets fit more into the structure of the later
Shakespearean sonnet, with the ABABCDCD rhyming scheme and rhyming
couplets. He has though subverted the classical form of the
Shakespearean sonnet and adapted it to suit his style of writing and
needs. He chooses to add an extra two lines in the form of a rhyming
couplet to summarise the rest of the poem and make a bold statement.
Traditionally sonnets have being written about love, romance and
landscapes by those such as Wordsworth, but Harrison prefers to focus
on more contemporary issues such as his strong opinions on our society
today, although manages to include conventional topics too but not in
the expected way. There are also other small changes that he has made
to benefit his style of writing. All these changes make him a very
unique writer, different to the colloquial, free verse most poets use.
Many would classify him as a modern sonnet writer.
Them & [Uz]
===========
These two sonnets are very powerful and portray a very strong message
to the reader. They are full of conflict and anger, ...
... middle of paper ...
...ntness in his
poetry is what's kept him outside the establishment; which is exactly
where he wants to be.
Them & [uz] is conflict between the different speaking groups and the
way they are made to be divided. Book Ends and Marked With a D are
both about conflict within his family, especially with his father and
also introduce the themes of death and religion. It is obvious that
the relationship between his father and himself was a very painful
one.
Harrrison's defines himself and his alienation through the use of his
language. Harrison treasured speech so much and the thought of him
losing part of that made him feel guilty and writing was a way for him
to deal with those feelings as well.
The renowned Resetti described a sonnet as a 'moments monument'. I
think this certainly summarizes Harrison's sonnets.
Harrison Bergeron is a short story that creates many images and feelings while using symbols and themes to critique aspects of our lives. In the story, the future US government implements a mandatory handicap for any citizens who is over their standards of normal. The goal of the program is to make everyone equal in physical capabilities, mental aptitude and even outward appearance. The story is focused around a husband and wife whose son, Harrison, was taken by the government because he is very strong and smart, and therefore too above normal not to be locked up. But, Harrison’s will is too great. He ends up breaking out of prison, and into a TV studio where he appears on TV. There, he removes the government’s equipment off of himself, and a dancer, before beginning to dance beautifully until they are both killed by the authorities. The author uses this story to satire
Citizen is a biographical excerpt of events that occurred in Claudia Rankine’s life. Claudia, a woman of color living in America, endured racism of different magnitudes while trying to attain the American dream; a decent education, respectable career and an exceptional home. The compilation of her experiences illustrates how during encounters with friends, colleagues, strangers and members of her own family, race can take a center stage. During the course of the many encounters, Claudia does not defend herself. She coped with the situation the best she could at the time; by not saying anything at all. Towards the end however, she was able to gain her voice and cried out against the injustice of it all. In her writing, Claudia displayed how deep-rooted her pain was. Claudia uses metaphors to illustrate the affliction she endured and how baffled she felt at the apparent racism and the blatant disrespect for her humanity.
During times when racial tensions were high, many African American authors and poets began to rise and give consciousness to racial inequality and injustice. Famous poets like Maya Angelou and Langston Hughes began to give a voice to African Americans. For example, in Maya Angelou’s, “Still, I Rise,” she speaks of overcoming her oppressors as a woman and expresses a great amount of self-love and self-worth. In Hughes’s poem, “I, Too,” he states that he is an equal and emphasizes that being black does not degrade your beauty which allows the readers to feel empowered. Angelou and Hughes used similar means to raise awareness and fight for their rights through literature, even though, Maya Angelou’s poem, “Still I Rise,” also states the issue of sexism and Hughes’s poem, “I, Too,” just focuses more on equality.
Williams does away with traditional poetic structure in order to free the actual poetry inherent in the sounds and meanings of words. In his poetry, he offers a lesson in aesthetics regarding how to engage his poetry as a way of looking at reality. At the literal level, his poetry speaks self-reflexively about its significance: "It is hard to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there." His poetry attempts to re-engage people in reality. As he contends: "Anything is good material for poetry. Anything"(Paterson V). This belief is evidenced in a passage from "Two pendants: for the Ears":
The question is: What do you think the grandmother meant when she said to the Misfit, “Why you’re one of my babies. You’re one of my own children!” Why do you think the Misfit killed her when she said that? Since the question is two parts, I’ll answer it in two parts.
I could tell that he was not from Mississippi because he would definitely know better. I didn’t want to get him in trouble, or hell I did not want to get myself into trouble. But he was just so cute and articulate. I could not help but to keep talking to him.
In this poem “Luxury”, Nikki Giovanni examines the word luxury and by doing this she realizes what it means to her. She realizes having more materialistic things in life isn’t all that we need. We need something that’s going to last forever something that can’t be taken away. So instead of finding contentment in the things we as society find luxurious, she found all the luxury in the world in her soulmate. To Giovanni love is the state of great comfort and extravagant living, meaning it’s more important than fame, money, fast cars and expensive clothes. Love by definition is a strong feeling of deep affection for somebody/something and this is what she felt when she was held that “one evening” (23).
“We write because believe the human spirit cannot be tamed and should not be trained,”—Nikki Giovanni a famous award winning poet, best known to write poems that range from love and friendship to the Civil Rights Movement. Nikki Giovanni has many well-known and famous poems. Nikki Giovanni’s life of a high spirited black woman living in the 1960s has influenced her poetry.
He also learned a lesson from his mistakes which ultimately creates a catharsis in the reading
Edward Thomas displays similar themes of nature, the constant presence of war, and the intensity of memory within the poems, “The Sun Used to Shine” and “The Sorrow of True Love”. The words of Robert Frost, an American poet during the early 20th century, greatly influences nature scenes that Thomas chooses. His relationships with Frost, other prominent figures in his life, and also his own personal life experiences shape the memories that Thomas depicts in his poetry. Thomas fought in World War I, therefore war is a significant element of his lifestyle, which translates into his poetry by usage of imagery of battles and the feeling of isolation given to the reader.
Pattern 1A: Three UCLA basketball players were arrested for shopping lifting; however, they were not prosecuted through China’s stringent judicial system.
In Billy Collins’s poem Introduction to Poetry, he displays his opinion regarding how poetry should be taught versus how it is currently taught. In doing this, Collins contrasts enjoyable metaphors of how a poem should be viewed with savage personification of how students traditionally analyze poetry to develop his true attitude towards teaching poetry.
By analyzing “Ars Poetica” by Archibald MacLeish, I’ll gain a definition of a poem that can be used to analyze other piece of poetry. I start by looking at the layout of the poem. This poem is divided into three parts with four stanzas in each. This tells me that these sections could be read independently and interpreted separately from each other. The first section uses words relating to ‘quiet’ such as mute, dumb, silent, and wordless. The next part of these stanzas talks about something that doesn’t have meaning until we impose one on it. For example, “as old medallions to the thumb,” a medallion is, on its own, worthless. It is only a hunk of metal that has been engraved, that is, until he ‘put our thumb’ or assign meaning to it. From this I get that the reader should have to find their own meaning of a poem, and that the poem should not directly tell you what it means.