A commentary on Bushed, a Poem by Earle Birney

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"Bushed"

	The entire poem is a metaphor taken literally it can be considered just a short story about a man stranded on a beach. He wakes up early in the morning, awake and very alive, he goes to sleep feeling secure. He learns how to survive by eating porcupine bellies and keeping their quills as a prize for his hunting and survival skills. Taken on the metaphorical level it is all about a man who created a perfect life fore himself, a rainbow as Earle Birney put it. His perfect life was ruined by some unknown catastrophe, "But lightning struck it shattered it into the lake-lap." He refers to lake-lap as the calm life he was leading, always monotone and continuous that was disturbed by the incident that may have ruined his life. Yet this man faced this as a new beginning, as a survivor. Birney uses the roasting of the porcupine bellies as a symbol of his facing the difficult situations that faced him in stride. He uses those situations to his advantage and takes pride in the way he handles them thus the reference to keeping the quills in his hat.

	In the third stanza Birney shows us through a series of metaphorical actions the characters evolution in his attitude towards the entire situation. At first our character is still unsure and alert at all that is happening around him, " At first he was out with the dawn." Yet he becomes more and more sure of himself and feels very secure, " A guard of ...

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