All three poems, ‘Haymaking’, ‘Shearing at Castlereagh’ and ‘The Chimney Sweeper’, explore the idea of work in very different ways. ‘Haymaking’ and ‘Shearing at Castlereagh’ both focus upon the idea of work creating a sense of fulfilment in life and both use positive imagery to reflect this idea, whereas ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ offers a different approach to the presentation of work, in that it is portrayed in a negative and somewhat upsetting manner. In ‘Haymaking’, Gillian Clarke explores the idea of work being a happy experience through the continued positive imagery throughout the poem. This positive imagery is mostly of natural objects as shown in the line, ‘sweet with the liquors of the grasses, air green with the pastels of stirred hayfields’, which creates a laidback and care-free attitude towards work, as emphasized by the shortness of the stanzas themselves. The use of the words ‘green’, ‘pastels’ and ‘first kittens, first love’ also portrays new life that is created through the process of haymaking and the pleasant memories that can bring from working.
Perhaps the writer was lucky enough to experience this beauty in his childhood and is writing of how he longs to return to that place. The title offers more scenery to go along with the story of these farms being drawn out next to a river, something that I am all to unfamiliar with due to the lack of any moisture around my hometown. Nonetheless, the imagery he gives in the writing of a thick, green pasture covered with sheep that lays next to a slow flowing river is very present in my head. The line regarding the pheasants caused me to slightly drift away from the writing to tie it deeper into my own experience as a child, and still as an adult, learning about pheasants and their particular ways in order to effectively be able to hunt them. The writing
The only sense of argument in the poem seems to be the idea that there’s always something to be thankful for within the problems and issues that arise. I think this also is the meaning of the poem, throughout the poem it keeps bringing up the point of a hidden blessing or bright side to everything that occurs. This starts right in the beginning of the poem, in lines 1-4 Martens writes “the morning was grey but the music/of the heart refused to quit, sentimental/and simple, even the power lines cutting the fields/were beautiful.” The image that came to my head here was a typical morning in the valley, rainy and gloomy. For most this isn’t something to be appreciated or seen as a thing of beauty, but Martens provides and argument, in a sense, that stepping back and viewing this it is a beautiful sight. There is imagery of the Fraser Valley in these lines as well because of the power lines cutting the fields, when one drives through farm lands this is a very common site.
Consider the importance of journeys in Edward Thomas’ poetry. Edward Thomas often transports us back to the countryside, in poems such as ‘Adlestrop’, ‘Aspens’ or even ‘The Mill-water’, in his mourning of the loss of rural England and the changeability of nature brought by the industrial revolution and the war. Referring more than once to the battlefield, he embarks his reader on a journey to France or inside England where the war can be felt. The image of roads and paths as means to travel and explore physically and spiritually is recurrent in Thomas’ poetry, for example in ‘Roads’ and ‘Over the hills’. In addition to providing journeys through space, Thomas offers journeys through time and memory, as in ‘Old man’.
“Petterson has been widely praised for the context of Out Stealing Horses; his descriptions of nature, and of small quiet moments in everyday life. Images of landscapes or domestic scenes are vividly evoked and it is his writing that makes these ordinary moments compelling.” Discuss. Per Petterson’s Out Stealing Horses is revolved around Trond Sanders’ life and the happenings within it. It is based in two different time lines, one of when Trond was spending a summer with his father in his childhood, and the other being a version of Trond as he is 50, living near to isolation from society. Trond’s early memories of his childhood are brought back forth from the meeting of his neighbour who he once knew.
These two poems show a vast amount of imagery within the writing but it is used in a different way to create a different result. Williams poem creates a vivid image of the surrounding landscape throughout the poem and it comes off with a happier tone for "the whole pageantry of the year was awake tingling near"(6). This line shows some irony because the poem is mainly about Icarus' death, and Williams is talking about being "awake." Relating to this irony is Williams talking about a farmer on land doing his daily job, "a farmer was ploughing"(4) and the sea connecting to the land doing what is always does, "the edge of the sea concerned with itself"(10) because this man and this ocean are just mainly concerned with themselves, not the death of Icarus. This evidence, including the word in the title "Landscape" and two important words "insignificantly"(16) and "unnoticed"(19) in the stanzas all connect back to the main idea of what Williams in trying to portray about this poem which is taking the spotlight off of the death of Icarus and identifying that every human lives for themselves and no matter what goes on in the ocean, the people on land still live their every
The rest of the poem in written in first person, this is used to describe how the hurricane changes her emotions throughout the duration of the storm. The third stanza links to the second stanza; she asks why the West African gods visit her in England. She asks the question "Tell me why you visit an English coast?" This is written in non-standard English, which reflects her Caribbean accent. Non-standard English is often used in Caribbean speech and writing and Nichols uses this to express how she used to live in Guyana.
The line lengths are kept short, some singling out individual words. These single word lines, such as “equally” attract the reader’s eye, in a way pedestalling it in an attempt to show the reader the fascination and awe of each word. “Words” is written mostly in free verse, with some rhyme but no distinct pattern of it. Perhaps this indicates the overwhelming exasperation that words have given Thomas: a feeling which can’t be contained in a strict structured poem. As “Words” is a tribute to language, the structure must be as unpredictable as its subject is.
“I wish her a luck passage.”(9) This shows that he is genuine in his feelings. The author uses concrete words to describe the scene. Phrases like “sleep, wild, dark/ iridescent creature”(24-25) are used to create not only visual imagery, but they describe the bird on a deeper, more emotional level. The whole poem creates scenes that are real and descriptive, but they are also emotional because of the context that it is in. When he does use abstract language, it’s used to create deeper meaning.
These words not only show a calm and loving feel, but in comparison to Auden, it shows the use of soft imagery opposed to harsh, which is portrayed by phrases such as ‘He is dead’. The difference in the type of imagery makes the reader more aware of the differences, especially with the tone of the poems being opposite to one another, beauty and lack of beauty. Byron portrays admiration well through his writing with the amount of emotion he uses. “Whose breast is so gently heaving”. This quote from ‘Stanzas for Music’ shows the beauty felt by Byron and the reader can see that he is trying to express the gentleness and beauty within what it is he’s describing, being a spectacular voice that has the power to stop what is natural in the world.