Mid Term Break

388 Words2 Pages
A poem which I have recently read is “Mid–term Break” by Seamus Heany. This poem told the story of someone’s death, which made the poem very sad to read. The poet showed the sadness using various techniques. The poem begins with the poet in the medical room of his boarding school, awaiting his neighbors to arrive to take him home. When he arrives home he sees his father is crying.There are also some friends and relatives in the house and he feels uncomfortable and a little embarrassed because grown men are shaking his hand. The next day he looks at the body, near the end of the poem the poet reveals that he was killed by a car accident and right at the end we find the he was only four. The poet shows his feelings of sadness about the death of his little brother by his good use of word choice. An example of this is “cot” which shows how young he was and “a four foot box”, to tell us just how small he really was. I think this works very well because it gives the reader a clear idea of what its really like. Another technique that the poet uses to show his sadness is imagery. He uses words such as “snowdrops” which gives you an image of a new life. Another word he uses is “poppy” which shows another image of red, of a violent death. This technique worked extremely well with me. The poet also uses the versification to show his sadness by using three lines in each verse and then only one in the last “a four box a foot for every year”. He cuts it short to reinforce the fact that his brother’s life has also been cut short. I like the way he did this and I thought it was a good tribute to his late brother. In conclusion therefore ”Mid-Term Break” by Seamus Heany is a poem which is structured very well and the poet uses, which I thought was excellent, word choice. He also created great imagery using words to show his sadness. Another method he used to show his great
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