An Abandoned Bundle by Mbuyiseni Oswald Mtshali
Nightfall in Soweto by Mbuyiseni Oswald Mtshali
How have two poems confirmed or altered your views and feelings?
An Abandoned Bundle and Nightfall in Soweto are both veracious poems that have enlightened me about the poverty and anguish suffered in South Africa, as well as the desperation that people in these places suffer.
These poems convey life in third world slums, and the brutal, dangerous situations that people endure.
In An Abandoned Bundle, Mtshali recounts his discovery of an abandoned child, on faeces and garbage, attacked by wild dogs. Mtshali begins the poem with very soothing image of “morning mist” over a “white city”, however this is quickly distorted by the harsh, graphic simile
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Mtshali describes another ghostly reality of the slums in Nightfall in Soweto. In this poem Mtshali tells the tale of the slum, Soweto, and how it becomes a “murder town” when the sun sets. Similes and severe imagery are used, describing it as a “rabid dog” and “dreaded disease” which indicates that the population in this town is predatory. These murderous connotations amplify Soweto as a deadly, unsafe city.
The poem is structured so that both the opening and end of the poem strike the confronting truth of the slums, such as “Nightfall comes like a dreaded disease seeping through pores” and “he barks like a rabid dog...thirsty for my blood”. The middle section the poem establishes the dangerous and brutal experiences through comments such as, “I am the victim” and “marauding beast let loose… from his cage of
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Nightfall is portrayed as a threatening person, evoking fear of those who live in traumatic dread. The hard repetition of the letter “d” throughout the poem emphasizes the grim nature of the slums. The forceful alliterative statement “ravaging it beyond repair” creates a similar malevolent tenor.
“I am slaughtered
“every night in the streets.”
These two lines capture the distressing, emotional damage caused living and hiding in his “matchbox” house.. Mtshali’s use of imagery conveys the dark, gruesome and lethal setting in which cannot live in safety. This creates great distress for me, as I am safe at night, whereas these people live in great fear of murder.
Powerful verbs used by Mtshali like “gnawing”, “slaughtered” and “ravaging” highlight the severity of the city and the danger that is posed. This jarring diction not only shows the constant horror the residents feel, but also evokes disgust and fear from readers.
Mtshali has used enjambment in this poem to create dramatic pauses after substantial comments such as;
“Nightfall comes like “he barks like a rabid dog a dreaded disease” thirsty for my
As the first poem in the book it sums up the primary focus of the works in its exploration of loss, grieving, and recovery. The questions posed about the nature of God become recurring themes in the following sections, especially One and Four. The symbolism includes the image of earthly possessions sprawled out like gangly dolls, a reference possibly meant to bring about a sense of nostalgia which this poem does quite well. The final lines cement the message that this is about loss and life, the idea that once something is lost, it can no longer belong to anyone anymore brings a sense...
The timeline carries on chronologically, the intense imagery exaggerated to allow the poem to mimic childlike mannerisms. This, subjectively, lets the reader experience the adventure through the young speaker’s eyes. The personification of “sunset”, (5) “shutters”, (8) “shadows”, (19) and “lamplights” (10) makes the world appear alive and allows nothing to be a passing detail, very akin to a child’s imagination. The sunset, alive as it may seem, ordinarily depicts a euphemism for death, similar to the image of the “shutters closing like the eyelids”
Ishmael conveys the full horror by consistently revealing descriptive language used throughout the text. It conducts a sort of shock to the reader. Also when we are ...
This poem captures the immigrant experience between the two worlds, leaving the homeland and towards the new world. The poet has deliberately structured the poem in five sections each with a number of stanzas to divide the different stages of the physical voyage. Section one describes the refugees, two briefly deals with their reason for the exodus, three emphasises their former oppression, fourth section is about the healing effect of the voyage and the concluding section deals with the awakening of hope. This restructuring allows the poet to focus on the emotional and physical impact of the journey.
This anthology is beautifully diverse and unique. Although the poems are new, they take reader back in time through issues that are relevant to the 21st century life. Most of the poems are experimental form probably because the poets are trying to get their voices heard by doing new things, which I think work well for a majority of these poems and others, not so much. Analicia Sotelo’s “I’m Trying to Write a Poem About A Virgin and It’s Painful” is an experimental prose form, and it’s beautiful. A part of the poem reads, “Some people said I should take her out of the poem. Other people said No, take her out of the lake and put her in the bedroom” (40). The poet making the process of writing a poem the poem itself is something new for me. The contrast in this piece also works well, although I still do not understand the metaphor of the lake. Also, Damian Caudill has a beautiful form in “Tuesday Ordinary.” The form and the style seem experimental but worthwhile. The poem is written from the perspective of Trayvon Martin’s hoodie, which many, especially in the African-American community believed contributed to his murder. The depth of thought that might have gone into the penning of this poem is commendable. However, I did not think this experimental form works well for “It was a miracle route everyone had been searching for and the story caused a sensation” on page 5. The later part of the first section left me with the question, “why is this a poem, or included in a poem? And I find it hard to comprehend why these different sections are fused under one poem. Also in Kara Kai Wang’s “Idiom,” I find the footnote alienating as a reader, because of the language used. I would have preferred if the footnoted words are in another languag...
The first two lines of the poem set the mood of fear and gloom which is constant throughout the remainder of the poem. The word choice of "black" to describe the speaker's face can convey several messages (502). The most obvious meaning ...
Strand, Mark and Evan Boland. The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms. New
The struggles that many face while experiencing poverty are not like any other. When a person is experiencing poverty, they deal with unbearable hardships as well as numerous tragic events. Diane Gilliam Fisher’s collection of poems teaches readers about labor battles within West Virginian territories, at the beginning of the twentieth century. Some of these battles include the Battle of Matewan and Battle of Blair Mountain. The collection of poems is presented in many different manners, ranging from diary entries to letters to journal entries. These various structures of writing introduce the reader to contrasting images and concepts in an artistic fashion. The reader is able to witness firsthand the hardships and the light and dark times of impoverished people’s lives. He or she also learns about the effects of birth and death on poverty stricken communities. In the collection of poems in Kettle Bottom, Fisher uses imagery and concepts to convey contrast between the positive and negative aspects of the lives of people living in poverty.
Etheridge Knight’s “Hard Rock Returns to Prison from the Hospital for the Criminal Insane” is an interesting poem spurred from his own experiences, that explores a variety of things from basic human emotions to controversial medical treatments. Knight was incarcerated for 8 years for robbery, during which he began to develop his skill as a poet, and this stint in prison influenced the settings and styles of his poetry. Knight’s poem is unique in its slang-styled diction, but brings about relatable concepts to allow the reader to connect with the text. Two prominent themes within the poem are that anyone, no matter how strong or looked up to, can be broken, and also that slavery is still alive today, even if it is not in its traditional form. Knight combines these themes with deeper meanings and an individual way of writing to create a poem that is compelling and classic.
Ferguson, Margaret W., Salter, Mary J., and Stallworthy, Jon. The Norton Anthology of Poetry. fifth ed. N.p.: W.W. Norton, 2005. 2120-2121. 2 Print.
Amiri Baraka and Abdul Ali are black nationalists whose poetic content stems from the struggles and suffering of African American people since slavery. There are many parallels regarding subject matter, theme, and tone in poems Baraka and Ali have written, including “Ka’Ba,” “21 Breaths for Amadou Diallo,” “Notes for a Speech,” and “Fatherhood Poem No.1.” Important themes in these works include the unity of black people, the suffering due to discrimination, and the distress resulting from oppression and segregation. The authors also employ horrific, resentful, and gloomy tones in their works. Amiri Baraka and Abdul Ali effectively utilize subject matter, theme, and tone to provide insight on the adversities that unify “every black man in America"
...wever, in “The Tuft of Flowers,” the concept of aloneness aids the readers to be cognizant of the idea that humans are all connected somehow. In addition, the speakers in “Mending Wall” and “The Tuft of Flowers” do not choose to be alone, whereas the speaker in “Acquainted with the Night” does. In “Mending Wall,” the speaker wants to get rid of the wall, because it blocks the opportunity of communicating with the neighbor. In “The Tuft of Flowers,” the speaker mentions, “as all must be,” (9) which gives the impression that the speaker has no other choice but to be alone. In sharp contrast, in “Acquainted with the Night,” the speaker purposely avoids human contact and takes a walk at nighttime to be in solitude. Therefore, the concept of loneliness and isolation in the three poems analyzed is used to enhance and make known the poem’s theme in different circumstances.
The ways in which Wilfred Owen’s Disabled and Maya Angelou’s Still I Rise present the overcoming of burdens are very intriguing. Each character possesses a burden that stands in their way, holding them back in life. In Disabled, the individual’s burden is the disability, trauma, and loss afflicted onto him by war and in Still I Rise racism, stereotypes, and a rough history endured by africans is Angelou’s burden. Though the authors experience very different problems and portray opposite atmospheres they contain similarities and use many of the same devices such as symbolism and juxtaposed antithesis points to deliver their messages.
...is on a downhill trend from the beginning, even his very tone expresses his desires and sadness. He is a little boy with a big crush in an even bigger world, where thing don’t always go as expected. The boy acknowledges this in his innocent heart and soul, at the carnival, when he is deprived of accomplishing his biggest and most important journey; bringing his love something very special from Araby. This task was extremely vital to him, and it was left uncompleted. The reason that the boy could not get to Araby on time was because his uncle arrived home late, because he had forgotten about him. That was a very cruel thing to do knowing how important this was for his nephew, he reminded his uncle many times. The uncles response was “ The people are in bed and after their fist sleep now( )”. The motif of decay is seen in some symbolism too. The apple tree in the wild garden is symbolic to the tree of knowledge. However, the tree in the story is wild, meaning that knowledge is limited in the neighborhood. For example, when the previous owner, the priest, of the boy’s house had died, he had given all his money to charity and left his sister with nothing but old and used furniture.
The dry, emotionally and spiritually barren village, and the villagers as an extension of the village, then encountered inexorable changes. A poetic sense slowly stepped into...