“Immigrants at central station, 1951”, this poem is about the Skrzynecki family waiting to depart on a train at central station to a migrant. The first stanza describes the time and the atmosphere of the where the family were the family is situated. The poem begins by capturing a brief moment in time from the whistle declaring its arrival to the scene of leaving with it. “It was sad to hear the train’s whistle this morning” these words provoke sadness where it usually brings joy. This tell us that the Skrzynecki family were sad due to the fact that they were about to travel to the unknown. “All night it had rained.” The imagery in the first stanza is depressing, the poems tone here is sad. As the poem goes on it says, “But we ate it all” the metaphor here is used for positiveness. No matter how depressed they were they still enjoyed it. The second stanza is about …show more content…
how the immigrants were waiting and that the time was waiting with them, “Time waited anxiously with us” the use of personification here is to highlight that the immigrants waited although they did not know what they were waiting for exactly. “And spaced hemmed us” this shows that the station was very crowded that night.
“Like cattle bought for slaughter.” this simile reveals the awful and crowded conditions that the immigrants are experiencing. The third stanza tells us about the family groups and that they huddled together with blankets ‘Families stood with blankets’ with the parents having to keep a close eye on their children ‘Keeping children by their sides’. ‘Watching pigeons that watched them’ this suggests that the immigrants are fascinated by the natural wildlife, it could be a metaphor for the local people at the station who just stare at the immigrants as they wait for their train. The fourth stanza portrays the fear and uncertainty of these immigrants and also reveals the impact of the whistle. “It was sad to hear” this is the repetition of the opening line of the poem. It seems like this journey was a forced journey that is controlled by man made machines “like a word of command” this represents the whistle, “like a guillotine” the use of simile suggests being cut off a kind of death as a guillotine is an instrument of
execution. They both represent the disapproval of freedom that the immigrants are facing, “Cutting us from the space of eyesight”, this is happening due to the signal that is in the way of the view down the track. ‘While time ran ahead’, in the last stanza the technique of personification is used tell us that time is leaving them behind and whatever lies before them will be forgotten and unknown.
In this poem, “On the Subway”, written by Sharon Olds brings two worlds into proximity. We will identify the contrast that develops both portraits in the poem and discuss the insights the narrator comes to because of the experience. The author refers to several literary techniques as tone, poetic devices, imagery, and organization. The poem talks about a historical view based on black and white skin. It positions the two worlds the point of view of a black skinned and a white skinned. The boy is described as having a casual cold look for a mugger and alert under the hooded lids. On the other hand, based on his appearance the white skinned person felt threatened by the black boy. She was frightened that he could take her coat, brief case, and
This poem is telling a story, perhaps of someone grieving over the loss of someone lose to them, with no happiness nor hope left to have. “Here you sit beside me, Our shadows have outgrown us. The lamp goes out, The joy already came, already went. Our heart will grieve, We’ll sit here melancholy, Like children greatly punished. Here you sit beside me, Our shadows have outgrown us” Earlier within the poem it states “The joy already came, already went” which is meaning there is no joy left as it was once there, just sadness and sorrow left behind. This poem shows that he, and other people he was with, went through a great amount of sadness and loss because the Holocaust took loved ones and family members away and he may have felt as if he didn't have hope left any chance of happiness.
The first line of the last stanza “Therefore,” suggest that previous ideas of physical need and despair provide a telling prelude to the fate of the children. The following lines “their sons grow suicidally beautiful at the beginning of October…” are further telling to their destiny. As aforementioned, the phrase “suicidally beautiful” and the setting of October are indicative of a period of death and decay. Following this notion, is the line “And they gallop terribly against each other’s bodies” which literally takes the poem back to the football game, but also symbolizes the struggle of the sons. They “gallop terribly” denoting an uncontrollable rapid progression, and are doing so “against” one another as if attempting to be the hero the community dreams about. However, just as the poem begins with the setting of the stadium and ends with their struggle, their lives are ultimately determined by a cycle of poverty beginning with the idealization of a hero, failure to provide the family, and hope for the child just like the “proud fathers” in the stadium. However, the chances of escape are extremely
Kim Addonizio’s “First Poem for You” portrays a speaker who contemplates the state of their romantic relationship though reflections of their partner’s tattoos. Addressing their partner, the speaker ambivalence towards the merits of the relationship, the speaker unhappily remains with their partner. Through the usage of contrasting visual and kinesthetic imagery, the speaker revels the reasons of their inability to embrace the relationship and showcases the extent of their paralysis. Exploring this theme, the poem discusses how inner conflicts can be powerful paralyzers.
In the first section Skrzynecki suggests that the physical journey is both literally and metaphorically away from Europe and the tragedy of war and represents the undertakers’ changing perspective. The introductory stanza of the first section immediately describes the undertaking of the physical journey which the poet implies is an escape but the voyage is described in an ambivalent tone. The adjective many denotes the fact that there was a whole mass of the immigrants and heat implies that the discomforting and cramped situation of the migrants wasn’t pleasant. Never see again emphasises the fact that these people are migrating and will never return to their homeland. The migrants’ physical description Shirtless, in shorts and barefooted stresses the lack of their belongings as they’ve left everything behind and their milk-white skin implies that their skin colour isn’t right for their adopted country, Australia and depicts that they won’t be comfortable there. The second stanza’s description of the migrants with the imagery of shackles, sunken eyes, ’secrets and exiles portrays them in disgrace as if they are running away from their homeland. Their sunken eyes also conveys their hardship in suffering and the war’s adversity and the shackles further emphasises their oppression and their confinement. To look for shorelines implies their desire to purge their suffering and inner turmoil as they find some consolation and hope in starting a new life. The last word of the stanza exiles implicates their expulsion from their land in fact they actually chose to leave.
From the combination of enjambed and end-stopped lines, the reader almost physically feels the emphasis on certain lines, but also feels confusion where a line does not end. Although the poem lacks a rhyme scheme, lines like “…not long after the disaster / as our train was passing Astor” and “…my eyes and ears…I couldn't think or hear,” display internal rhyme. The tone of the narrator changes multiple times throughout the poem. It begins with a seemingly sad train ride, but quickly escalates when “a girl came flying down the aisle.” During the grand entrance, imagery helps show the importance of the girl and how her visit took place in a short period of time. After the girl’s entrance, the narrator describes the girl as a “spector,” or ghost-like figure in a calm, but confused tone. The turning point of the poem occurs when the girl “stopped for me [the narrator]” and then “we [the girl and the narrator] dove under the river.” The narrator speaks in a fast, hectic tone because the girl “squeez[ed] till the birds began to stir” and causes her to not “think or hear / or breathe or see.” Then, the tone dramatically changes, and becomes calm when the narrator says, “so silently I thanked her,” showing the moment of
Hence, the poem's tone contains elements of remorse as well as impassivity. The traveler's detached description of the mother, "...a doe, a recent killing; / she had stiffened already, almost cold" (6-7), and the wistful detail with which he depicts her unborn offspring, "...her fawn lay there waiting...
Lucille Clifton's poem "Move" deals specifically with an incident that occurred in Philadelphia on May 13, 1985. On that date, Mayor Wilson Goode, Philadelphia's first African American mayor, authorized the use of lethal force against fellow African Americans living at 6221 Osage Avenue. In her introduction to the poem, Clifton says that there had been complaints from neighbors, who were also African American, concerning the "Afrocentric back-to-nature" group that called itself "Move" and had its headquarters at this address (35). The members of this group wore their hair in dreadlocks and they all used their surname of "Africa." Clifton's poem suggests that it was these differences that cost the lives of eleven people, including children, and the loss of sixty-one homes, as authorities bombed the neighborhood rather than tolerate such diversity. In this poem, Clifton emphasizes the word "move," giving it a layered meaning that encompasses it not only as the name of the organization of the people who were bombed, but also as the imperative command to take action and "move" away from harm. Ultimately, however, the word becomes a command that is directed toward the African American major who caused the tragedy. Clifton points an accusing finger, saying that it is he that should "move" and not the people to whom he directed such violence.
“On the Subway,” by Sharon Olds as she contrasts the two worlds of a wealthy Caucasian and a indigent African-American. The Caucasian narrator, a female, describes how this black man appears to her as she fears for her life as if he is ready to prey on her. She brings two worlds from different backgrounds together through the use of imagery and fearful and hopeful tones.
This darkly satiric poem is about cultural imperialism. Dawe uses an extended metaphor: the mother is America and the child represents a younger, developing nation, which is slowly being imbued with American value systems. The figure of a mother becomes synonymous with the United States. Even this most basic of human relationships has been perverted by the consumer culture. The poem begins with the seemingly positive statement of fact 'She loves him ...’. The punctuation however creates a feeling of unease, that all is not as it seems, that there is a subtext that qualifies this apparently natural emotional attachment. From the outset it is established that the child has no real choice, that he must accept the 'beneficence of that motherhood', that the nature of relationships will always be one where the more powerful figure exerts control over the less developed, weaker being. The verb 'beamed' suggests powerful sunlight, the emotional power of the dominant person: the mother. The stanza concludes with a rhetorical question, as if undeniably the child must accept the mother's gift of love. Dawe then moves on to examine the nature of that form of maternal love. The second stanza deals with the way that the mother comforts the child, 'Shoosh ... shoosh ... whenever a vague passing spasm of loss troubles him'. The alliterative description of her 'fat friendly features' suggests comfort and warmth. In this world pain is repressed, real emotion pacified, in order to maintain the illusion that the world is perfect. One must not question the wisdom of the omnipotent mother figure. The phrase 'She loves him...' is repeated. This action of loving is seen as protecting, insulating the child. In much the same way our consumer cultur...
Although the little girl doesn’t listen to the mother the first time she eventually listens in the end. For example, in stanzas 1-4, the little girl asks if she can go to the Freedom March not once, but twice even after her mother had already denied her the first time. These stanzas show how the daughter is a little disobedient at first, but then is able to respect her mother’s wishes. In stanzas 5 and 6, as the little girl is getting ready the mother is happy and smiling because she knows that her little girl is going to be safe, or so she thinks. By these stanzas the reader is able to tell how happy the mother was because she thought her daughter would be safe by listening to her and not going to the March. The last two stanzas, 7 and 8, show that the mother senses something is wrong, she runs to the church to find nothing, but her daughter’s shoe. At this moment she realizes that her baby is gone. These stanzas symbolize that even though her daughter listened to her she still wasn’t safe and is now dead. The Shoe symbolizes the loss the mother is going through and her loss of hope as well. This poem shows how elastic the bond between the daughter and her mother is because the daughter respected her mother’s wish by not going to the March and although the daughter is now dead her mother will always have her in her heart. By her having her
It shows how one’s behavior can change throughout an obsession of getting rid of an annoyance. The prejudice the farmer has towards woodchucks becomes personal. We as humans will always have opportunities to see this and if we are not careful experience it personally. Kumin uses various literary devices throughout her poem to prove this point. The main literary devices used to help prove the poem’s point are allusion, symbolism, point of view, characterization and alliteration. This is a part of humanity that is seen all throughout history. One can only hope that just like the Jews, that others will not consent to be gassed quietly and just go away. It may have been the quiet Nazi way, however one can only hope poems such as this one can keep in the front of our minds the possible nature of man if we are not careful to be loud and notice unjustices.
Overall, it expresses the love and affection of Collin about this poem. This poem is basically looked at, or listened to, and the rodent tested. Such imagery used in poem supports the central ideas of Collin in poem, that the reading poetry must be, just like a good exploration, a discovery act. The poem has a very conversational effect and scholastic feel in it. First stanza directly linked to the second stanza while the third and fourth stanza of this poem has distinct thoughts in them. Similarly, the six stanzas come in a follow-up way but the mood actually changed in the last two stanzas of the poem. In short, Collin has written this poem in a very special and artistic way which really changes other’s minds about how to better understand a poem by knowing its actual meaning.
The poem contains the central idea that many of these children never understood what home really means. In Native American culture the people venerate earth and it is referred to as mother nature which we see in the poem. The rails cut right through their home but they don’t view them like the average person. They view the tracks as if they are scars across mother earths face and her face is the Native American’s homeland. She is scarred for eternity but she is perfect in their dreams. This symbolism is ironic because the children try to reach home using the railroad that ruined natural life for them and many other Native Americans. In the second stanza the speaker says “The worn-down welts of ancient punishments lead back and fourth” (15-16). Which can be talking about the marks on the children’s bodies after getting caught while running away. But the “word-down welts” can also symbolize the welts that were put on mother nature throughout history. The last five lines of the poem sums up the symbol of hope through their memories and dreams. The last line of the poem says, “the spines of names and leaves.” (20-24). The “spines” symbolize the physical strength of the children and their ability to maintain hope individually “names”, and for their tribe
The author uses a rhyme scheme that mirrors the pace of walking. The pace is moderate using an octameter meter, and each stressed syllable is like each footfall of the narrator. As he walks through the streets near the River Thames, he notices the common distress in the faces of the people he passes along the way. The author uses alliteration in line four, 'marks', 'weakness' and 'woe'. It draws emphasis on the feeling of severity and the widespread effect on these people.