A writer’s choice of nouns and verbs alters the feel and meaning of a poem. A prime expel of this fact is in the Crowder Collage literature book, on page even hundred seventy-three, more topics for writing, number two. I chose the poem “When the Time’s Toxins,” by Christian Wiman, for the exercise. Comparing line one side by side, it is clear that replacing “toxins” with “banes” gives the negative connotation a broader field. The word “toxins” brings chemicals or plants to mind. Whereas, “banes” could mean a large number of things including, but not limited to, chemicals, plants, viruses, bacteria, human action, or traits of society. Looking next at line two, we can see that by substituting the verb seeped with percolated, the feel has been changed. Seep gives more of a natural feeling. Percolate on the other hand, in popular culture, brings to mind a mechanical processes, most likely …show more content…
Plot in line three was changed to garden. The feel was slightly changed in line three because while plot means, “A small piece of ground marked out for a purpose such as building or gardening” (oxforddictionaries.com). A garden is more specific. It is a plot set aside for the use of vegetation. Therefore, garden gives the poem more of feel for nature. Line four has three alterations. The first of which is changing rain to precipitation. The author’s use of nouns is better; since rain has a natural feel, and precipitation has more of a scientific feel. The author’s choice of green was better than my choice of vegetation again for the same reason as the last alteration. Green has more of a natural connotation than vegetation. Line four’s last switch was replacing the prepositional phrase “are gone” with “have receded.” The phrase “have receded” gives the feeling that something has fled slowly. Yet, the phrase, “are gone” just states that they/it are/is no longer
Specifically, the grandfather in this poem appears to represent involvement with nature because of his decisions to garden as he “stabs his shears into earth” (line 4). However, he is also representative of urban life too as he “watched the neighborhood” from “a three-story” building (line 10). The author describes the world, which the grandfather has a small “paradise” in, apart from the elements desecrated by humans, which include “a trampled box of Cornflakes,” a “craggy mound of chips,” and “greasy / bags of takeouts” (lines 23, 17, 2, and 14-15). The passive nature of the grandfather’s watching over the neighborhood can be interpreted in a variety of different ways, most of them aligning with the positive versus negative binary created by the authors of these texts. The author wants to show the reader that, through the grandfather’s complexity of character, a man involved in both nature and more human centered ways of life, there is multifaceted relationship that man and nature share. Through the also violent descriptions of the grandfather’s methods of gardening, the connection between destructive human activities and the negative effects on nature is
69. Print. Strand, Mark, and Eavan Boland. The Making of a Poem: a Norton Anthology of Poetic
Kennedy, X. J., and Dana Gioia. "Chapter 10, Hate Poem." Backpack Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 412+. Print.
...us 75.1 (Jan. 1991): 150-159. Rpt. in Poetry Criticism. Ed. Lawrence J. Trudeau. Vol. 58. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resource Center. Web. 25 Feb. 2011.
Meinke, Peter. “Untitled” Poetry: An Introduction. Ed. Michael Meyer. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s 2010. 89. Print
The use of alliteration, tone, mood, theme and other elements that construct a well balanced poem are in this piece of literature.
Strand, Mark and Evan Boland. The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. New
Poetry and Drama. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 9nd ed. New York: Longman, 2005. Pgs 389-392
Stillinger, Jack, Deidre Lynch, Stephen Greenblatt, and M H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Volume D. New York, N.Y: W.W. Norton & Co, 2006. Print.
“We pluck and marvel for sheer joy. And the ones still green, sighing, leave upon the boughs…” (14-16). This emphasis on nature reflects the respect and connection to the natural world the culture was trying to convey in their poetry. The colorful and illustrative descriptions of the physical world are indicative of the mindset and focus of these poems. Namely the fact that they were concerned with the world around us and the reality we experience as opposed to that of abstract concept of god or the supernatural as seen in other historical texts. This focus on nature is important because it sets the context in which the major theme of loss and separation originate from. In this poem the poet chooses to emphasize the passing of time in the choice of comparing the two seasons. Spring, in which life begins a new, and fall, in which the leaves begin to fall off and die. The poem reads “And the ones still green, sighing, leave upon the boughs- Those are the ones I hate to lose. For me, it is the autumn hills” (15-18). This juxtaposition of these two
Poetry, Drama, and the Essay. Ed. Joseph Terry. New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc, 2001. 123-154.
In Hamlet, a play written by William Shakespeare, poison is often used as a metaphor. Poison is seen throughout the play in many different ways. Characters throughout may not even be physically affected by poison, but in some way or another it's almost as they have been poisoned in the mind. The best way to describe it is, it's like a chain reaction all the way through the play. Beginning with Claudius, who not only murders Hamlet's father but at the same time he basically murders Hamlet as just more in a mental state. Then from there it's like the poison seeps through and moves on to affect Polonius and Gertrude. Polonius again is just another victim of the poison in the mind, but Gertrude is affected physically when she drank the poison all because she thought she should, since she is royalty. Finally, Ophelia is the final poisoned victim. This one poison really seems to do a lot of damage all the way through the play, and it shows because once the King was murdered, everyone begins to die from there. The poison, metaphoric or not, both ways it is a brutal killer in the play.
1 Modern Poetry. Third Edition. Norton. I am a naysayer. 2003. The 'Secondary' of the 'Secondary' of the Williams, William.
Throughout the poem, Henry Vaughan uses many examples of imagery involving the nature that is in the United Kingdom. Lines 11 and 12 of the poem states “My walk a monstrous, mountained thing, Roughcast with rocks and snow” (ln. 11-12). This is used to be one of the descriptions towards the physical aspect of the journey that Vaughan took for his “regeneration”. It gives the reader a clear example of how the adventure is not easy and has many hardships in it already. This spreads to give the poem an intensity that would be absent without such imagery. Displayed in lines 41 through 44, it says, “The unthrift sun shot vital gold, A thousand pieces, And heaven its azure did unfold, Checkered with snowy fleeces” (ln. 41-44). This specific description gives the weather that is present during this time. Weather is an important factor that can imply the tone to a poem or even be a key factor that indicates foreshadowing of what is to come