How Poets Describe Their Attitude to Place in Several Works of Poetry
Poets often write about the place they live in or come from. I am
going to examine how poets how poets express their relationship to a
particular place while considering their intentions, how thoughts and
feelings are expressed, the use of language, connections between
different poems and include my personal response.
In "Hotel Room, 12th Floor" Norman McCaig is writing about America. We
know that he is more precisely writing about New York because he
mentions the "Empire State Building" and the "Pan Am skyscraper". We
know his place is America because he uses the word "sidewalks" which
is essentially an American terminology for a footpath.
McCaig is amazed by the technological achievements of the city in
"Hotel Room, 12th Floor". He uses the simile "a helicopter skirting
like a damaged insect" and the phrases "jumbo sized dentist's drill"
and "glittering canyons and gulches" to express the sheer size of the
city to reader. I think that the helicopter simile is successful
because it gives the reader an idea of the size of the city; the
helicopter is so small and delicate in comparison. I think that the
phrase "jumbo sized dentist's drill" doesn't work very well because
the object being described doesn't share as many characteristics with
the object being used to describe it.
In the sixth line of the first stanza, "Hotel Room, 12th Floor" McCaig
refers to the invasion of "midnight" from "foreign places". The phrase
"midnight" stands for uncivilised ways and violence. The phrase
"foreign places" stands for unknown feelings from deep inside us that
we don't s...
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...n to personify his place, Ireland, as "both a
bore and a bitch".
My Favourite of these poems is "Hotel Room, 12th Floor" because it
describes civilisation as it appears and not as it is. We appear to
have changed, due to advances in technology, but we haven't, we are
still the same savages as before and always will be. The idea of
civilisation not existing appeals to me, technology is a cover up of
reality, technology is all around us and created by us, but it means
nothing in out uncivilised world. the poet feels towards his place.
Due to how McCaig describes the violent side of the city, it makes me
think that he has a distant relationship with his place. The phrase
"Odi Atque Amo" by Louis McNiece defines the poets feelings in this
case, it means to be attracted to and repelled by something at the
same time.
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India in 1956 and then moved to the USA in the 1960s. She now lives in
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