Imagine if you had to pack up only a couple of your prized possessions and carry them around with you for months on end. This is the poem “Dead Swagman”. (Recital of poem) “The Dead Swagman” written by Nancy Cato. She was an Australian writer who published multiple historical novels. She was born in 1977 and died in 2000. This poem is the story of a lonely swagman who died, was half cremated by a bush fire and is now merged with the nature and is given new life. My initial response to the poem was a deep sense of empathy. This indicated to me the way the man’s body was treated after he had passed. I felt sorry for him as the poet created the strong feeling that he had a lonely life. It told us how his body became a part of the land and how he added something to the land around him after he died. The man set up his camp …show more content…
The author suggests that dying isn’t necessarily a bad thing as the poet states the man and the bush “are now one”. The author also conveys a perception that he was going to be a part of something bigger and better. The swagman suffered a lonely but peaceful death. The tone of the poem is sad and peaceful. There are multiple examples of these emotions throughout the poem, evidence of the poem being sad is “buried him half in ashes, where he lay”. These words clearly show us that there is a strong sense of sadness within these words. Proof of this poem being peaceful is “in the sunny afternoon, and takes his ease”, which clearly states that the swagman was relaxed and was not in a stressed environment. There are multiple examples of visual imagery in this poem. An example of a simile is “curled like a possum within the hollow trunk”. The effect this has is the way it creates an image for the reader to see how the man is sleeping. An example of personification is, “yet both belonged to the bush, and now are one”. The result this has is how it creates an emotion for the reader to feel
Imagery is made up of the five senses, which are sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. The first sense of sight is seen throughout the whole poem, specifically in the first two lines, “I had the idea of sitting still/while others rushed by.” This sight she envisions is so calm and still and the perfect example of appreciating the little things that life has to offer. Through the use of these terse statements, she allows it to have more meaning than some novels do as a whole.
Everyone wonders what happens when you become deceased. What if you had the chance to write an epitaph for people to remember you by? Everyone in Spoon River had the opportunity to express their feelings, opinions, and views. In Spoon River Anthology, By Edgar Lee Masters: and my favorite life-themed epitaphs included, Lucinda Matlock, Griffy the Cooper, and Decan Taylor.
In his poem entitled “Grief”, Williams accurately describes his grief at the loss of a loved one. In Part One, the feeling is heavy and overwhelming. The speaker, (most likely Williams), recalls days of sitting bedside with a slow-dying love. Some writers waste time in getting to the heart of the poem, but Williams wastes none. In the first line, he leaves his readers with no question as to what is going on in the poem. He writes, “Gone now, after the days of desperate, unconscious gasping, the reflexive / staying alive,” (29). All readers are instantaneously reminded of an experience with watching a loved one pass slowly, perhaps painfully.
In the fifth and final line of the poem the author writes “When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose" After the bomber landed the ball turret gunner was simply washed out. It was a s very methodological action giving no thought to who the gunner was. This serves as a very jarring end as the rest of the poem was focused more on the gunners thoughts and mind set. This shows that after death the thoughts and emotions of the person are gone all that is left is the
The diction Kenyon employs for her description of the poem’s physical and psychological setting serves as Kenyon’s primary means for presenting her argument regarding the nature of the mourning process and its failure to help those who have lost loved ones. The poem’s first stanza begins as follows, “Like primitives we buried the cat with his bowl. Bare-handed we scraped sand and gravel back into the hole(1-4).” The first two words, “like primitives,” give the reader immediate insight into Kenyon’s opinion regarding the nature of the burial itself. She sees it as a means of coming to grips with death that is less evolved than the mental state of those that it attempts to help. When the first stanza is interpreted as a whole, the reader is...
Have you ever lost someone you were close to? The loss of a loved one is a tough experience to go through and the poem, “The Vacuum” by Howard Nemerov, illustrates it in no better way. In the poem the speaker lost his wife and is constantly reminded of her by the old vacuum she used to use. Nemerov uses the speaker, setting, and figurative language to portray the grief and sorrow that death brings.
The poem aligns perfectly with White’s themes of appreciating one’s own life as it exists and remaining aware of death’s approach. White states, “I watched him [his son], his hard little body, skinny and bare, saw him wince slightly as he pulled around his vitals the small, soggy, icy garment. As he buckled the swollen belt suddenly my groin felt the chill of death” (237). At this moment, White glimpses the decay of his own life in his son’s liveliness. Clearly, the intimate and harrowing observations that White provides surpass the childhood experience of Hughes. Life and death provide meaning that any reader can relate to; however, Hughes topic of religion serves a less than universal role. Although their abilities to describe and narrate stand on similar grounds, White’s use of diction better embellishes the crucial message of his
Imagery is a key part of any poem or literary piece and creates an illustration in the mind of the reader by using descriptive and vivid language. Olds creates a vibrant mental picture of the couple’s surroundings, “the red tiles glinting like bent plates of blood/ the
In this poem, imagery shapes what we think and what we will further believe about war based on how vividly we see it. If there were horrible pictures taken during this battle we would have been given a visual representation of it. If we were given a helmet to touch and try on we could easily understand what the soldiers physically felt during this war. Unfortunately, we cannot fully understand this war though because we cannot smell, hear, or taste this war like the soldiers did. Although in this poem all five of our senses are fed by words that help us go back in time and visit the place that is written about. Without imagery this war scene would be short, boring, and uneventful. With the overpowering description given in each line we see a more accurate depiction of war and are given an opportunity to live it as if we were there.
Death is a reality that can be interpreted in many ways. Some people fear the possibility of no longer living and others welcome the opportunity for a new life in the afterlife. Many poets have been inspired by death, be it by the approaching death of loved ones or a battle for immortality. Just as each poet is inspired differently, each poem casts a different hue of light on the topic of death giving readers a unique way to look at death.
...ightful look into death and the fears and doubts that it induces within all of us. The narrator of the poem is a man who has never been able to confront death, beginning with the loss of his dog at the age of ten. He has chosen to avoid it his entire life, rather than attempting to understand it. It is finally as an adult that a vivid dream causes him to finally face his fears: he sees his dog rising out of its grave and begins to ask it for forgiveness. The dog in the dream can be seen as a representation of his trepidation. Once he is able to confront it and ask for its pardon, he can finally begin to cope with the idea of death.
Arthur Yvor Winters, an American poet and literary critic stated "This is a remarkably beautiful poem on the subject of daily realization of the imminence of death" it’s a poem of departure from life, an intensely conscious leave-taking. And Allen Tate, a distinguished American poet, teacher, and critic called this "An extraordinary poem".
At a glance, the poem seems simplistic – a detailed observance of nature followed by an invitation to wash a “dear friend’s” hair. Yet this short poem highlights Bishop’s best poetic qualities, including her deliberate choice in diction, and her emotional restraint. Bishop progresses along with the reader to unfold the feelings of both sadness and joy involved in loving a person that will eventually age and pass away. The poem focuses on the intersection of love and death, an intersection that goes beyond gender and sexuality to make a far-reaching statement about the nature of being
Imagery is “the formation of mental images” (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/imagery?s=t). Some examples of imagery are on lines 9-12, “passing the flickering red and green of traffic signals...the mystery of his wild loping gait”. Flickering, mystery, wild, and loping are all descriptive words that help you imagine what it would actually look like. Although there are many more descriptive words and phrases in this poem, if they were all mentioned, the whole poem would have to be quoted, which is not good. This makes the poem more interesting and
Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden is a short poem that illustrates the emotions that he is dealing with after the love of his life passes away. The tone of this piece evokes feelings that will differ depending on the reader; therefore, the meaning of this poem is not in any way one-dimensional, resulting in inevitable ambiguity . In order to evoke emotion from his audience, Auden uses a series of different poetic devices to express the sadness and despair of losing a loved one. This poem isn’t necessarily about finding meaning or coming to some overwhelming realization, but rather about feeling emotions and understanding the pain that the speaker is experiencing. Through the use of poetic devices such as an elegy, hyperboles, imagery, metaphors, and alliterations as well as end-rhyme, Auden has created a powerful poem that accurately depicts the emotions a person will often feel when the love of their live has passed away.