In David Wagoner’s poem, “My Father’s Garden”, the speaker describes his father’s job as a fruitful gardener that his father find very productive but does not finally yield anything of value. Through the use of vivid imagery, we are presented with two contrasting outlooks on life. In four stanzas, Wagoner’s use of imagery and metaphors shows us what he thinks of his father’s job, his education and subsequently, the choices his father has made throughout his life.
We are first presented with image of an open hearth which directly sets the tone for the first stanza. The speaker description of his father as a knight in a furnace with where “white hot steel” (ln, 1) that is pierced by “his lance” (ln, 2) has a negative connotation. With the use of the words, “blazing” and “molten” (ln, 4), the setting is hell-like and ultimately gives us an insight into the speaker’s impression of his father. However, in the last sentence, the scene drastically changes from a merciless“open hearth” to a calm a scrapyard that is his father’s “kind of garden” (ln, 6).
In the secon...
The first line, “the axe rings in the wood,” provides an auditory image: the reader imagines the sharp cracking noise of an axe colliding with wood ringing out across the poem’s setting. “Rings” is also an interesting verb to use, as it invokes the rings found within a tree when it is cut open by something like an axe. The description of splitting wood also connects the piece to the pastoral tradition, which often celebrates physical labor and utilizing nature to provide for one’s needs.
“Abandoned Farmhouse” and “Ode to Family Photographs” both capture the theme, essence of family. However, one poem highlights turbulent times and the other emphasizes flaws that add to the memory of family in a positive way. The mood of “Abandoned Farmhouse” is dark and lonesome, whereas the mood of “Ode to Family Photographs” is fatuous and nostalgic. Each poem shows evidence of a mood which contributes to the overall meaning of the poem.
“Maybe it was / because the only time / I hit a baseball / it smashed the neon cross / on the church across / the street” (1-6). The readers are clearly presented with a scene of a boy playing baseball and accidentally breaking a church cross. The boy then explores and toys with the possible divine consequences for accidentally breaking a cross with a baseball. “Maybe it was the demon-stoked / rotisseries of purgatory / where we would roast / hundreds of years / for the smallest of sins” (11-15). Here the poet effectively uses imagery to show the reader how a child’s imagination may perceive hell. This may also show the impressionability of the Church on a freethinking child and how the combination can be profound on a young boy with internal conflicts. This can also apply to children’s fantasies and their carefree attitudes which allows them to blend what mindsets they were forced into with that of their
The imagery in this passage helps turn the tone of the poem from victimization to anger. In addition to fire images, the overall language is completely stripped down to bare ugliness. In previous lines, the sordidness has been intermixed with cheerful euphemisms: the agonizing work is an "exquisite dance" (24); the trembling hands are "white gulls" (22); the cough is "gay" (25). But in these later lines, all aesthetically pleasing terms vanish, leaving "sweet and …blood" (85), "naked… [and]…bony children" (89), and a "skeleton body" (95).
I will go into detail on Thomas’s tone and the emotion within the poem. Lastly, I will analyze the four stanzas that help symbolize Thomas’s image of his father.
Robert Frost’s dramatic poem Home Burial depicts two tragedies: the loss of an infant and the deterioration of a marriage that follows. The emotional dialogue characterizes husband and wife with their habits of speech, illustrating the ways that they deal with grief. Instead of comforting her in her distress, the husband attempts at every turn to force his wife to cease grieving. The unnamed farmer’s inability to console his wife, who seems to feel so much more deeply the loss of her child, combined with her inability to see any feeling at all in her husband’s actions, contribute to a conflict that seems unresolvable by the end of the poem. But Frost’s diction suggests that it is the husband’s style of communication, not his method of grieving, that is the true cause of the vast distance between the two.
Theodore Roethke’s short poem “My Papa’s Waltz” can be interpreted as a brief representation of alcohol abuse by the father. The poem is short and brief and does not go into full depth as to what creates the idea of how the father could be represented as an alcoholic. However, the poem’s diction, style, and imagery helps create a sense of unspoken words that the poet is trying to portray. Diction, style, and imagery in poetry help enhance the poet’s narration of his poem. These literary devices also help create a sense of understanding for the reader so they are able to interpret the poem from different perspectives.
In the third stanza, the language becomes much darker, words like: anger, explode, and against make this stanza seem even more warlike than the first stanza.
The poem ‘The Farmer’s Bride’ is based on a couple relationship between the farmer and his bride. It is in some aspects similar to ‘Of Mice and Men’ as they both present a couple based relationship. In the poem the relationship is bet...
While most of us think back to memories of our childhood and our relationships with our parents, we all have what he would call defining moments in our views of motherhood or fatherhood. It is clearly evident that both Theodore Roethke and Robert Hayden have much to say about the roles of fathers in their two poems as well. While the relationships with their fathers differ somewhat, both men are thinking back to a defining moment in their childhood and remembering it with a poem. "My Papa's Waltz" and "Those Winter Sundays" both give the reader a snapshot view of one defining moment in their childhood, and these moments speak about the way these children view their fathers. Told now years later, they understand even more about these moments.
Scott Hightower’s poem “Father” could be very confusing to interpret. Throughout almost the entirety of the poem the speaker tries to define who his father is by comparing him to various things. As the poem begins the reader is provided with the information that the father “was” all of these things this things that he is being compared to. The constant use of the word “was” gets the reader to think ‘how come the speaker’s father is no longer comparable to these things?’ After the speaker reveals that his father is no longer around, he describes how his father impacted him. Details about the father as well as descriptions of the impacts the father has distraught on the speaker are all presented in metaphors. The repetitive pattern concerning the speaker’s father and the constant use of metaphors gives the reader a sense that the speaker possesses an obsessive trait. As the reader tries to interpret the seemingly endless amount of metaphors, sets of connotative image banks begin to develop in the reader’s mind. Major concepts that are expressed throughout the poem are ideas about what the speaker’s father was like, what he meant to the speaker, and how he influenced the speaker.
The neglect from the parents is amplified with the symbolism of the snowflake quilt and the allusion to “Hansel and Grethel.” In the real world, parental abuse and neglect can negatively impact a child’s life forever. Examples of long term effects would be depression or drug and alcohol abuse. Bishop portrays these examples of the cruelty of neglect by using certain literary techniques in “The Farmer’s
Many writers use powerful words to portray powerful messages. Whether a writer’s choice of diction is cheerful, bitter, or in Robert Hayden’s case in his poem “Those Winter Sundays,” dismal and painful, it is the diction that formulates the tone of the piece. It is the diction which Hayden so properly places that allows us to read the poem and picture the cold tension of his foster home, and envision the barren home where his poem’s inspiration comes from. Hayden’s tumultuous childhood, along with the unorthodox relationships with his biological parents and foster parents help him to create the strong diction that permeates the dismal tone of “Those Winter Sundays.” Hayden’s ability to both overcome his tribulations and generate enough courage
The consistent pattern of metrical stresses in this stanza, along with the orderly rhyme scheme, and standard verse structure, reflect the mood of serenity, of humankind in harmony with Nature. It is a fine, hot day, `clear as fire', when the speaker comes to drink at the creek. Birdsong punctuates the still air, like the tinkling of broken glass. However, the term `frail' also suggests vulnerability in the presence of danger, and there are other intimations in this stanza of the drama that is about to unfold. Slithery sibilants, as in the words `glass', `grass' and `moss', hint at the existence of a Serpent in the Garden of Eden. As in a Greek tragedy, the intensity of expression in the poem invokes a proleptic tenseness, as yet unexplained.
Robert Frost, known for being a Modernist American poet was said to have hidden the pain of his private life through his writing career. He shared many ideas and was barely given credit for any of it during his lifetime. However, the nation mourned when “the most beloved poet of the century” passed away. (Greiner 94-95). After his death, the nation was then able to study and understand Frost’s life and the reasoning behind his poetry. Frost was set on making a difference in poetry as he once expressed, “I expect to do something to the present state of literature in America” (Greiner 95). The poem, “Putting in the Seed” written by Frost himself, expresses one of his common themes in his poems, nature. Being recognized as an American poet till after death, Frost has impacted poetry in a way that may not exist if it was not for him. Throughout his life he overcame many hardships through writing, which he used as therapy. This astounding author left the impression of creativity at its finest.