Groarke And Quill Analysis

The troubling past of Irish history has played a significant role in the lives of many Irish poets, including Vona Groarke and Alan Gillis. Although they were both born after the initial Irish War of Independence, which ended in 1921, they have been exposed to much of the devastating aftermath. The Unionists and Nationalists clashed once again during The Troubles in the late 20th century; this event has equally informed the lives and the poetry of Gillis and Groarke. The two poets constantly explore the elements of war, politics, and, crucially, the idea of escaping the harsh realities of surrounding atmospheres in their poems. The way in which they address these issues, however, differs. Groarke’s poetry has a greater emphasis on issues of

‘Quill’, composed of a pair of triplets and a single couplet, is one long independent clause. In fact, it is not a just a clause, but a question which she grapples with throughout her poetry. In summary, Groarke questions whether a feather taken from a dead bird, dipped in the bird’s blood, and used to write a poem might “have an inkling of the fate/that will make of this [poem] possible, because flight is not?” (Groarke, 54). Interestingly, Groarke makes it clear that the feather and blood be taken from a dead bird, not from one that is alive. In other words, a bird that has no life cannot fly; it has lost its purpose, and yet that does not defer the speaker of the poem from the notion that this bird’s blood and feathers might possess great power. In fact, Groarke doesn’t just use the word “dead”, but she even refers to the bird as “that flurry on the board”. The speaker of the poem, therefore, recognizes that this bird is not in decent condition; that it is in a messy, chaotic state. If even this bird, however, might possess such power, then a bird that is alive and capable of flight must be

There is no set meter; not a single line has iambic pentameter. The syllables do not follow a set scansion either. Regardless, the pace of the poem is rather quick, given that there are very few pauses due to punctuation. The words themselves do not pose any difficulty for the reader to pronounce; if the word ends in a consonant, the word after almost always begins either with the same consonant or with a vowel. This is evident in most lines, for example: “because the spine’s unbroken and the vane is stiff and squat”. Most of the words are also monosyllabic, making the pace of the poem even faster. This is significant because of the nature of the poem itself; since the speaker wants to capture the mystical element of birds in the poem, that is to say the element of flight, the poem itself is successful in that it is flying. Although the poem’s pace is considerably quick throughout it’s entirety, the pace slightly slows down in the final couplet: “might even that one feather have an inkling of the fate/ that will make all of this possible, because flight is not?” Most of the words are still monosyllabic and most of the words that end in consonants are still proceeded by vowels; however, the opposite is also true. Transitioning from the word “feather” to the word “have” forces the reader to take a slight pause; as is true in the phrases