Monday 14 May 2012

Marrysong, by Dennis Scott


He never learned her, quite. Year after year
That territory, without seasons, shifted
under his eye. An hour he could be lost
in the walled anger of her quarried hurt
on turning, see cool water laughing where
the day before there were stones in her voice.
He charted. She made wilderness again.
Roads disappeared. The map was never true.
Wind brought him rain sometimes, tasting of sea -
and suddenly she would change the shape of shores
faultlessly calm. All, all was each day new;
the shadows of her love shortened or grew
like trees seen from an unexpected hill,
new country at each jaunty helpless journey.
So he accepted that geography, constantly strange.
Wondered. Stayed home increasingly to find
his way among the landscapes of her mind.

Story
The speaker of this person is an anonymous third person, but it is about the relationship between a man and a woman, and how it changes and develops over time as they go through life, get to know each other better, and yet still find the other one strange and mysterious.

Tone
This has a varied tone, but overall it is reflective. It gradually becomes more excited and lively as it goes on, reflecting their relationship becoming both more interesting and more tempestuous over time. The last three lines are much quieter and more conclusive, however, and give a sense of resolution.

Deeper Meanings
The poet is showing how love is like a journey, and is getting the idea across that love is full of ups and downs, not always perfect, and not necessarily leading to people understanding each other. However, this changing and this mysterious element to it make it exciting, as well as dangerous. It suggests that ultimately the most exciting adventures people have are those that take place in the heart, not in the wild outside world.

Structure and Form
The poet has structured the poem to get across the idea of surprises and changes, which is shown by the placement of punctuation in the middle of lines, enjambment, very short sentences, and the shift between regular meter/ rhythm, and irregular/more jumpy meter and rhythm.
The poem is basically in iambic pentameter and without the last 3 lines is a sonnet of sorts; perhaps this reflects the idea of the poet looking at something which is both unfamiliar and familiar; taking the familiar sonnet form and changing it, as the love he describes keeps shifting between familiar and unknown.

Prominent Words
learned her’ – the idea that he is studying her, she is complex
‘accepted’ – by the end of the poem he has found some resolution
‘constantly strange’ – always difficult to understand/ unfamiliar
‘on turning’/ ‘suddenly’ – how quickly their relationship changes                                                                                                  
‘cool water’ – her voice is refreshing, almost thirst quenching for him


Imagery & Symbolism
Journeys and exploration: the centre metaphor in this poem is the idea that love is like a journey through wilderness: this highlights how love is dangerous, exciting, unknown, everchanging etc.
Mapping: ‘territory’, ‘charted’, ‘map’
How people try to understand and categorise their feelings
Nature/ time: the sea, days, wind, hours, years: these are images which
show love to be powerful but ever changing.
Pain/ difficulty: ‘stones’, ‘anger’: how love is not just the ‘good times’

Sound
The iambic pentameter creates a certain liveliness in the poem, to reflect the excitement of the ‘journey’ he describes. There is little alliteration or rhyme, perhaps reflecting the ever changing and unpredictable nature of the relationship being described. There is some subtle sibilance, however, for example ‘suddenly she would change the shape of shores’, which adds a calmness to the atmosphere of the poem.

First Love, by John Clare

Story
This is a first person account of falling in ‘love’ for the first time having only seen someone from afar. It is addressed to an imaginary reader, and explores the pains and turmoil, and the confusion involved in this experience. The speaker is changed forever by this.


Tone
Melancholy, questioning – particularly self-questioning. There is a feeling of dark bewilderment. Rhapsodic – the parts addressed to the woman are lyrical and admiring. By the end, there is a reluctant sense of acceptance of the situation.

Deeper Meaning
The confusing, paradoxical nature of feelings – how can you love something which causes you so much pain? The poet is hinting at how words are inadequate, yet it is a poem about trying to articulate and explain what cannot be explained or articulated. We are also being shown how this kind of love is not based on reality so much as on the speakers own thoughts and feelings.

Structure and Form
No punctuation – gives a sense of things going out of control, being hard to make sense of.
Regular meter and form (length of stanzas and lines stays the same) – this is ironic given the speaker’s confusion, but perhaps reflects a longing for coherence and regularity on the part of the speaker.




Prominent Words
blood’ – this suggests both the depth of his feeling (it is inside his body) and the pain of it (blood associated with wounds)
‘stole’ – he doesn’t feel in control of what happens to him; he almost blames the woman


‘sweet’ – the word repeated three times about his love/ her. It conflicts with the pain elsewhere, but is oddly quite a mild word, almost suggesting his feelings weren’t based on much.


Imagery & Symbolism
Physical pain – deadly pale etc – suggests love affects his body, and makes him ill it is so strong.
Seeing/ sight – being able to see represents being able to understand, yet love blinds him and puts him in the dark


Dwelling place – symbolising safety and calm, a home which the speaker no longer feels he has


Sound
The meter/ rhythm are very regular and establish quite a persistent atmosphere in the poem, almost mirroring the way the poet got swept along by his feelings. There is lots of sibilance, creating a rather sinister undertone. The alliteration around ‘blood burnt’ adds a harshness to their sound, underlining the pain he experiences.

The Flower-Fed Buffaloes, by Vachel Lindsay


The flower-fed buffaloes of the spring
In the days of long ago,
Ranged where the locomotives sing
And the prarie flowers lie low:
The tossing, blooming, perfumed grass
Is swept away by wheat,
Wheels and wheels and wheels spin by
In the spring that still is sweet.
But the flower-fed buffaloes of the spring
Left us long ago,
They gore no more, they bellow no more:--
With the Blackfeet lying low,
With the Pawnee lying low. 

Story
This poem is about the destruction of the Native American people and their joint culture. This was destroyed by the coming of settlers and their new technology (trains and locomotives.) and their new forms of agriculture (wheat). As a result of this, the old things have died out, for example, the old tribes and the buffaloes.

Tone
The poem has a mournful tone as it feels nostalgic for it's past. As the old things have been swept away by modern life. Furthermore, there is slight anger for those who are responsible, yet it is fairly hidden.

Deeper Meaning
The poem is fairly unambiguous, as his point is very clear. The speakers tells us how despite people think it is progress, but in fact it's the opposite and it's destruction.
The poet is trying to get the reader to feel sympathy for nature, and admire the beautiful nature. However, there is tension whether this loss should just be accepted, or resisted.

Structure and Form
The poem is separated into 3 clear parts. Firstly, it shows how things were, then how things changed, and then how things are now. This chronological features, mimics how the effects are permanent and there is no going back.
 The lines get shorter as the poem goes on, which represents how the amount of buffaloes is dwindling. The phrase 'lying low' is repeated many times, which creates a mournful tone and emphasises the message that they have gone.

Full Moon and Little Frieda, by Ted Hughes


 A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket - 
And you listening. 
A spider's web, tense for the dew's touch. 
A pail lifted, still and brimming - mirror 
To tempt a first star to a tremor. 

Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm 
wreaths of breath - 
A dark river of blood, many boulders, 
Balancing unspilled milk. 
'Moon!' you cry suddenly, 'Moon! Moon!' 

The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work 
That points at him amazed.

Story
This poem describes the poet, Hughes, addressing his daughter, Frieda, talking about an amazing moment when she sees the reflection of the moon inside a bucket, and calls it by it's name. This could possibly be her first world.
The setting is the yard of their house, or farm.

Tone
The tone is very affectionate and loving and the father is joyful in the progress of his daughter. There is a sense of joy in this shared momentous experience.

Deeper Meaning
The father's pride in the linguistic development of his daughter. He conveys this through how the world is shaped through the language we use.
However, as amazing as a moment this is for the father, it is actually a very small event on the cosmic scale of things. Nonetheless, it is an extremely important event for him as a father.

Structure and Form
This poem is written in free verse which means that he can structure the poem how he wants, and talk about his surrounding scene.
We are given the component parts of the scene is a list-like form, which makes the poem extremely visual, and more like an artistic painting.


Amends, by Adrienne Rich



Nights like this: on the cold apple-bough
a white star, then another
exlploading out of the bark:
on the ground, moonlight picking at small stones

as it picks at greater stones as it rises with the surf
laying its cheeck for moments on the sand
as it licks the broken ledge, as it flows up the cliffs,
as it flicks across the tracks

as it unavailing pours into gash
of the sand-and-gravel quarry
as it leans across the hangared fuselage
of the crop dusting plane

as it soaks through cracks into trailers
tremulous wit sleep
as it dwells upon the eyelids of sleepers
as if to make amends.

Story
It begins with the moon shining on the natural world, and moves onto it shining on man-made things.

Tone
The poem begins with a tranquil and calm tone, but as the poem continues it becomes more angry, and we feel a sense of agression.

Deeper Meaning
Man-made building on the landscape is very intrusive and bad for the environment. And the poem poses the question wondering if healing of the natural world is possible. Furthermore, it poses the question of man's insignificance in the world. 

Structure and Form
The 4 line stanzas create a sense of calm due to their regularity. Lack of punction creates a feeling of enjambent and the moon moving freely around the world.


Dover Beach, by Matthew Arnold


The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.



Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Story
The poet is speaking to his new wife, while they look at a hotel window in Denver. The poet  describes the sea and the sounds that he can hear. it reminds him of Sophocles and how he compared the sound of the sea to human suffering. He refers to the sound as the 'sea of faith' which is 'ebbing'. I.e. getting less. This refers to religious belief and how it is getting less.  He says religion is not comforting, and all humans have is love.

Tone
There is a range of tone throughout the poem . It varies from sadness and hope to passionate to objective.


Deeper Meaning
This is another wonderful, human response to the natural world. There is much uncertainty and doubt in the world, and it is beautiful but ever changing. There is much misery in the world. Religion is ebbing away.


Structure and Form
The poem is laid out in 5 stanzas and they progress so does his though progress. Each stanza is clearly a different thought theme and has a distinct tone compared to the other stanzas. There sia  rhyme scheme which matches the theme of the poem.

Time by Allen Curnow



I am the nor'west air nosing among the pines
I am the water-race and the rust on railway lines
I am the mileage recorded on yellow signs.
I am dust, I am distance, I am lupins back of the beach
I am the sums sole-charge teachers teach
I am cows called to milking and the magpie's screech,
I am nine o'clock in the morning when the office is clean
I am the slap of the belting and the smell of the machine
I am the place in the park where the lovers are seen.
I am recurrent music the children hear
I am level noises in the remembering ear
I am the sawmill and the passionate second gear.
I, Time, am all these, yet these exist
Among my mountainous fabrics like a mist,
So do they the measurable world resist.
I, Time, call down, condense, confer,
On the willing memory the shapes these were:
I, more than your concious carrier,
Am island, am sea, am father, farm, and friend,
Though I am here all things my coming attend;
I am, you have heard it, the Beginning and the End.

Story
In this poem, the speaker is time, and it's main point it is trying to convey is how human's time on earth is fleeting, and they should be more aware of their little time.

Tone
The tone throughout is very arrogant and grandiose. Often commanding, for example in the final line. Yet it is also playful and riddling. As it is full of paradoxes.

Deeper Meaning
This poem is trying to make us step outside our normal view point of the world. How life is actually very insignificant, and your time is fleeting so are the thigns we do in our day to day lives really that important?

Structure
The first four stanzas creates a persona and explains who time is. However, after the first four stanzas it shifts to become more thickly punctuated and more strict in nature and insisted.