Understanding and interpreting Poetry

There is one more cause for choosing this particular work of Tennyson and it is the figurative language and the way the poem sounds. The use of alliteration, imagery, metaphors and the oxymoronic statement at the end make the poem more philosophical and thoughtful. Grief is something that everybody has felt. One of the causes for being sad are memories which remind us of something that is gone or is over. The poem “ Tears, Idle Tears” has the same subject.

They also use different ways of verbalising their point of view, such as alliteration and similes. Both poems are very affective in catching the reader’s attention and interesting them. I think that although the ‘First Love’ and ‘When We Two Parted’ are different due to the fact that one focuses on love and the other on loss. The difference in language of the two poems is tied up with the theme, simple and traditional words, used in a different tone and for different purposes for the two poems.

At first glance, the poem seems a structured mass of words, simply constructed. However, a second look revels the poem's straightforward attempt to, ironically, reverse the roles of reader and speaker. Through its diction, it is a unique portrayal of a simple poem's reaching out to grab the reader's attention, eager to express that it is not merely a collection of words but intricately related to whoever peruses it. An attitude of regret is also apparent. The speakerexpresses concern in that he cannot control the reader's ... ... middle of paper ... ...poer to examine and scrutinize literature in general, this role-reversal may come as a surprise to her.

The reader can not only read this poem once to understand it. It takes multiple readings and great thought to decipher that the poet actually uses this pattern in this poem to depict life’s difficulties, abrupt pauses, lingering suffering, and sometimes broken dreams. This poems reveals that sometimes, during the suffering, dying, or during our “upturned faces” things may seem slow, because we linger on our problems, or as the poets depicts, “a touch of hell now and then.” During our battles, our “improprieties” preyed by “its men of instinction…of extinction…and its various segregations and congressional investigations and other constipations” the world may seem ... ... middle of paper ... ... He incorporates the images of heaven and hell, which amusingly one can vision although one may never be able experience. As he describes the world’s imperfections, he uses dramatic imageries of people dying and starving, and bombs.

Even to the most trained eye, Ashbery's use of conversation pieces set his writings apart. Daniel Kane, who interviewed Ashbery, focuses on the writing technique of Ashbery's poems and how it directly relates to diverse ideas. In order to gain clarity, Kane delved deep into the meanings of lines within Ashbery's writing. "I frequently incorporate overheard speech", said Ashbery in the interview, "much of which obviously doesn't make very much sense when overheard…[it] obviously makes a lot of sense to the people who are talking…[it has a] special meaning for them" (Kane 2). Ashbery recognizes that his poetry is what sets his apart.

‘War Photographer’ by Carol Ann Duffy, ‘The Sick Equation’ by Brian Patterson and ‘I Shall Return’ by Claude McKay are all thought provoking poems, which are all similarly conveyed to the reader through the protagonists thoughts and vivid recolections. The authors narrative posture (being the protagonist) gives the reader an insight into the poets authorial stances, making each poem to some degree, autobiographical. When anaylising each poem it becomes apparent that numerous literary techniques have been amalgamated into the poems to add sharp contrasts, rythem, mood and evocative imagery, these litarry techniques help elaborate, emphasize and represent the theme of loss and isolation which is evident in each poem to various degrees. Each of the three poems has a deeper meaning that perhaps you wouldn’t envisage at a first glance. For instance ‘I Shall Return’ could be interpreted very simply as someone's fond recollection of a place once visited, but then again the reader could interpret it as a personified object or form of natures memories.

Both “anyone lived in a little how town” and “I'm Nobody! Who are you?” are complex poems. Each of these poems have very different messages; the former relating to the poet as an individual and the latter being about the passing of time. They utilize wordplay and ambiguity as rhetorical techniques through which to convey their overall message. Each of these poems utilize similar structural and rhetorical techniques – creating characters out of pronouns - to convey their messages.

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.

Indeed, by observing the themes and imagery found in these two poems, one can see that they do contain some similarities. Though these similarities do exist, there are also several quite obvious differences between the two. The most noticeable distinguishment involves the length of the poems. While Whitman's "Song of Myself" is quite lengthy, giving detailed and wordy descriptions, Dickinson's "This quiet dust was Gentlemen and Ladies" is much more concise and to the point. While Whitman tends to leave little to the imagination, Dickinson uses very few, carefully selected words, forcing the reader contemplate the meaning of the poem and create his own image of the scene being described.

These dashes, from simply looking at the poem, also interrupt the rhythmic flow and help lend a hand in helping Dickinson create a unique form of diction. Alliteration is also a key element throughout this poem as there are many ‘s’, ‘w’, and ‘f’ sounds. For example, there is line within the poem that says, “When One died for Truth, was lain…” With this, there is a continuous “w” sound rolling off of the tongue. Assonance is also noticed throughout the poem in that Dickinson uses ‘oo’ sounds with the words beauty, tomb, who, truth, and room. In terms of rhyme and meter, the poem is set with a fixed rhyme pattern that took the form of ABCB.