The two poems that have been studied are Brothers by Andrew Forster which is about the growing apart from siblings and growing up to become an adult and Praise Song for My Mother by Grace Nichols which is about the close relationship between a child and their mother. The two poems show very different relationships between the speaker and the person they are with or talking to. In Brothers the feelings and attitude from the speaker to the little brother is that the speaker feels as though he is to grown up for his little brother and doesn’t want him around one example that shows this is ‘ridiculous tank top’ where he is already saying mean things about him by using the adjective ‘ridiculous’. ‘Doing like grown-ups do’ which also is suggesting that they want to grow up and not be stopped by the speakers little brother. This is different to Praise song for my Mother, which is a poem all about the closeness the speaker has with their mum.
Harmonium and Nettles Harmonium and Nettles both highlight the theme of memory. As they both are looking back over past memories that are painful, the poems feature the feelings of being helpless in stopping the hurt that was caused. The writer in Harmonium feels remorse for the things he hadn’t said to his father as Armitage states “then mouth in reply some shallow sorry phrase or word too starved of breath to make itself heard”. The writer in Nettles is protective of the recurring threat to his child that he can’t destroy. “rain had called up tall recruits behind the shed,” this quote shows the father cannot destroy them .They differ in the way they felt powerless however as in Nettles the father is feeling powerless because of a physical threat whereas in Harmonium it is an emotional threat of the inevibility of death and unspoken feelings that makes the writer feel powerless.
It can be translated in different ways through the time. “Conjoined” (1891) by Judith Minty is a blank verse poem which uses a lot of metaphors that describe a broken relationship ; the poem gives you a feeling of a general unhappiness. In contrast, « My Dear and Loving Husband » (1678) by Anne Bradstreet, is a true declaration of love. The poet talks about her husband, celebrating their unity and stating that there is no other woman in the world who is as happy with her husband as she is. The two poems give two competing visions of marriage.
Compare how poets use language to present feelings in “The Manhunt” and one other poem (Nettles) In ‘Manhunt’, Simon Armitage uses rhyme to reflect the togetherness of a relationship. He says “After the first phase, after passionate nights and intimate days.” As the poem goes on, the reader can start to recognise that the un-rhymed cuplets show how fragmented their relationship has become. In ‘Nettles’ Vernon Scannell uses elements of nature, the nettles, to portray his keen anger towards the pain his son is going through. At the beginning of the poem, Scannell uses soft ‘s’ sounds to emphasise the soothing of his injured son who has fallen in a nettle bed. The child is presented using emotive language.
Both of the poems ‘Born Yesterday’ and Nettles’ deal with an unidealistic view focused on the inability to protect our loved ones from inevitable pain. Both Vernon Scanell and Phillip Larkin convey the theme of the lack of power to deliver happiness using the relationship between a man and a beloved child. In the poem ‘Nettles’, the relationship explored is between a father and son using the adult’s perspective whereas ‘Born Yesterday’ uses a bond between a man and his friend’s new born daughter. The first poem recalls an incident where Scanell’s young son was stung by nettles, displaying the poet’s desire to protect his son from the dangers of the world. The title ‘Nettles’ creates the thought of the severe stinging pain that the nettles produce that the reader will have experienced.
In the poem “Singh Song!”, the poet uses repetition to show the persona of Singh as being very personal and intimate when he spends the little time that he has with his “newly bride”. The repetition of the word “baby” tells the reader that Singh is happy being married to his wife and that he gives her a high status in his life. The repetition of “my bride” is triple refrained which perhaps suggests that Singh has a surprising nature about his wife. This creates an interesting character as it tells us that he is willing to stop working and go against his father’s orders just to spend time with his wife. Despite the criticism he receives from his customers, Singh seems to hold his wife as a major and main priority in his life and could suggest that his emotional and mental wellbeing depends on his wife.
Stephanie Lasasso AP Literature and Composition Dr. Godbold Block 1A January 22, 2012 To an Inconstant One Sir Robert Ayton’s poem To an Inconstant One is a narrative poem that talks about a man who and an unfaithful lover. The poem begins by stating the fact that it was not his fault, but hers that they are no longer together because she was very hasty about making decisions about love. The rhetorical question “What reason I should be the same?” makes the reader connect with the author and forces them to ask themselves the same question that he once had to ask himself: if you changed and lost your love for me, then why can’t I do the same? This goes towards establishing a connection with the reader and making them more interested in reading the poem.
Like so, poet ‘Peter Skrzynecki’ in “Immigrant Chronicle” visibly demonstrates his struggle to feel united with his own parents, it also demonstrates his struggle to feel united with the world that is different to his parent’s or ancestor’s. Like so, another text “Sweeney Todd” 2007 directed by Tim Burton focuses on the negative impact of forced imprisonment and reflects this negative impact as a result of Sweeney’s inability to generate a sense of “us” after he was freed from imprisonment. The poem “Felix Skrzynecki” initiates the readers with a personal pronoun by the poet “My” “My gentle father” instantly establishing their filial
In order to describe the emotions that the father is feeling toward his son, Lee uses structure, point of view, and tone. The use of structure in this poem shows the complex relationship that the father has with his son and how the father feels about his inability to satisfy his son’s desires. The author separates the poems into three distinct units, each highlighting a different stage of the boys feelings toward his father. The stages of the boys love are separated by the different stanzas
The most powerful image of the poem comes when she says; “it’s finally having a man reach out for you then caving in around his fingers” (17-20). This demonstrates wanting or needing any kind of love you can get and staying attached to it and despite abuse. In this quote the speaker not only alludes to finding someone but also domestic abuse. The narrators desire to fit in and be socially accepted comes at a price of losing her self image as well as her control. She is not comfortable in her skin and that leads to her dependence on others to fill that void.