SONGS OF OURSELVES

1 Sujata Bhatt, A Different History

A Different History by Sujata Bhatt

This poem is written by Sujata Bhatt who emigrated from India. This poem is about the British Colonization in
India and importance of religions and culture in India. There are 2 seperated parts in the story where there is 2
different themes and different moods. Cultural difference, importance of language, lost identities(souls), Indian
traditions are the most important themes. The poet used free verse, repeated words and questions to make the
poem stronger.
PART I:
The poet tries to say the life shoulde be free in India. She explains how we should treat books and respect them.
This part explains how religions are important in India. Almost every object is sacred like trees and the gods can
roam freely which tells the reader about the freedom in India. Also Bhatt sais that without disturbing
Sarasvati(goddess of knowledge), without offending the tree we should learn how to turn pages gently. It means
agains religions are very important and also the knowledge is very important. The mood of this part is hopeful
and the tone is respectful and well-coming. Unforunetly, everything will change in the second part.
PART II:
The poet complains about the British Colonization in this part. She focuses on importance of language and how
British took their language, knowledge and identities. The oppressor’s tongue which means England tried to kill
their language and souls. There is an angry tone in this part and the mood is hopeless and fearful. Bhatt describes
the process of the colonization and effects about language and future. She explains how British invasion took their
identities with a scythe. Finally, Bhatt mentions unborn grandchildren will love that strange language as their own
language

How does Sujata Bhatt strikingly illustrate the paradox of history in her poem A Different History?

"A Different History" is about language as well as history. Sujata Bhatt is said to write in Indian-English rather than
Anglo-Indian. In other words, she positions her Indian culture and language in the primary position in opposition
to the cultural effects of the historical British colonization of India. The two stanzas could represent India before
British imperialism and then India during and after the British presence there.
In the first stanza, the "gods roamed freely" and to kill a tree is a sin. Their cultural and spiritual ideas were free:
not subject to any outside law or regulation. And sometimes, the colonizing country would suppress the occupied
country's language and impose their own as a way of enforcing their (the colonizer's) culture. There is a reverence
for language, books and the Indian culture they represented. Therefore it is a sin to be violent and/or destroy the
sanctity of that culture and the knowledge from those books and ideas. (Sarasvati is the goddess of knowledge).
You must learn how to turn the pages gently
Without disturbing Sarasvati,
Without offending the tree
From whose wood the paper was made.
In the second stanza, we see the clash of the two cultures and therefore, the clash of two languages. In this
stanza, the speaker asks how future generations can grow to love the language of the historical oppressor. By
presenting these two contrasting histories, the speaker reluctantly acknowledges the modern, Post-colonial India,
but implores the reader to have a historical awareness of the peaceful India before colonialism and the
colonization that led to the integration of British and Indian cultures.
Bhatt described India as the melting pot of many cultures. The quote “Great Pan is not dead: he simply emigrated
to India.” supports this as the Pan was originally the Ancient Greek God.
“It is a sin to shove a book aside/with your foot, /a sin to slam books down/hard on a table, a sin to toss one
carelessly/across a room.” This quote is describing the rules that the India culture must obey, as it is superstition
that these actions will “disturb Sarasvati” and “offend the trees”. The repetition of the negative language “sin”
creates a sense of oppression, and this comes in contrast with the previous line “the gods roam freely”. Bhatt’s
use of negative language made me visualised that she is being enclosed in cages made of oppression.
The sense of oppression relates to the second stanza of the poem, where the poet ask, “Which language has not
been the oppressor’s tongue?” The rhetorical question used here evokes no specific languages (to me), as all
languages has once been the oppressor’s tongue. All countries have had some history of taking over another
country at some point in the past. “Which language truly meant to murder someone?” This rhetorical question
evokes the thought that no language truly meant to hurt someone, because it is rather the people’s action who is
actually hurting and killing someone. Since the words “murder” and “oppressor” are relates to the common
theme of war, another interpretation maybe that the invasion of another culture – a new language, could take
over the original culture. This is due to the fact that once a country has been taken over by another, that country’s
population are forced to learn the conqueror’s home language. This replaces the mother tongue over times, and
will be passed on to later generations, where Bhatt says “the unborn grandchildren grow to love that strange
language”. The words “love” and “strange” contradicts: The “unborn grandchildren” learned the language since
they were born, so they will might as well love that language. They do not know of the past history that changed
the local language . However in Bhatt’s view, speaking from a grandparent’s view, the language that her “unborn
grandchilren” loved remains a strange language (The word “strange” might mean that Bhatt is confused of not
able to speak and communication in her mother tongue.)

2 Gerard Manley Hopkins, Pied Beauty

Pied beauty

The poem opens with the line “Glory be to God for dappled things”. This gives us a first impression that the poem
is about religion, and that the poet is an appreciative and optimistic worshipper. In the first four lines of the poem,
Hopkins describes naturally beautiful things – but things that aren’t necessarily beautiful at first glance. He
describes the mottled white and blue colours of the sky, the brindled hide of a cow and the patches of contrasting
colour on a trout. He also tells us about a chestnut falling from a tree, it is hard and ugly on the outside but when
it falls to the ground the soft, beautiful, meaty interior is revealed. The next few lines contrast manmade beauties
with these natural ones – manmade beauties such as the patchwork colours of a farm when separate parts are
folded, fallowed and ploughed. In the final few lines Gerard Manley Hopkins concludes that he is thankful for all
living and dappled things – “Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) ...” The last two words; “Praise Him”

Summary

The poem opens with an offering: “Glory be to God for dappled things.” In the next five lines, Hopkins elaborates
with examples of what things he means to include under this rubric of “dappled.” He includes the mottled white
and blue colors of the sky, the “brinded” (brindled or streaked) hide of a cow, and the patches of contrasting color
on a trout. The chestnuts offer a slightly more complex image: When they fall they open to reveal the meaty
interior normally concealed by the hard shell; they are compared to the coals in a fire, black on the outside and
glowing within. The wings of finches are multicolored, as is a patchwork of farmland in which sections look
different according to whether they are planted and green, fallow, or freshly plowed. The final example is of the
“trades” and activities of man, with their rich diversity of materials and equipment.
In the final five lines, Hopkins goes on to consider more closely the characteristics of these examples he has given,
attaching moral qualities now to the concept of variety and diversity that he has elaborated thus far mostly in
terms of physical characteristics. The poem becomes an apology for these unconventional or “strange” things,
things that might not normally be valued or thought beautiful. They are all, he avers, creations of God, which, in
their multiplicity, point always to the unity and permanence of His power and inspire us to “Praise Him.”

Form

This is one of Hopkins’s “curtal” (or curtailed) sonnets, in which he miniaturizes the traditional sonnet form by
reducing the eight lines of the octave to six (here two tercets rhyming ABC ABC) and shortening the six lines of the
sestet to four and a half. This alteration of the sonnet form is quite fitting for a poem advocating originality and
contrariness. The strikingly musical repetition of sounds throughout the poem (“dappled,” “stipple,” “tackle,”
“fickle,” “freckled,” “adazzle,” for example) enacts the creative act the poem glorifies: the weaving together of
diverse things into a pleasing and coherent whole.

Commentary

This poem is a miniature or set-piece, and a kind of ritual observance. It begins and ends with variations on the
mottoes of the Jesuit order (“to the greater glory of God” and “praise to God always”), which give it a traditional
flavor, tempering the unorthodoxy of its appreciations. The parallelism of the beginning and end correspond to a
larger symmetry within the poem: the first part (the shortened octave) begins with God and then moves to praise
his creations. The last four-and-a-half lines reverse this movement, beginning with the characteristics of things in
the world and then tracing them back to a final affirmation of God. The delay of the verb in this extended
sentence makes this return all the more satisfying when it comes; the long and list-like predicate, which captures
the multiplicity of the created world, at last yields in the penultimate line to a striking verb of creation (fathers-
forth) and then leads us to acknowledge an absolute subject, God the Creator. The poem is thus a hymn of
creation, praising God by praising the created world. It expresses the theological position that the great variety in
the natural world is a testimony to the perfect unity of God and the infinitude of His creative power. In the
context of a Victorian age that valued uniformity, efficiency, and standardization, this theological notion takes on
a tone of protest.

Why does Hopkins choose to commend “dappled things” in particular? The first stanza would lead the reader to
believe that their significance is an aesthetic one: In showing how contrasts and juxtapositions increase the
richness of our surroundings, Hopkins describes variations in color and texture—of the sensory. The mention of
the “fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls” in the fourth line, however, introduces a moral tenor to the list. Though the
description is still physical, the idea of a nugget of goodness imprisoned within a hard exterior invites a
consideration of essential value in a way that the speckles on a cow, for example, do not. The image transcends
the physical, implying how the physical links to the spiritual and meditating on the relationship between body and
soul. Lines five and six then serve to connect these musings to human life and activity. Hopkins first introduces a
landscape whose characteristics derive from man’s alteration (the fields), and then includes “trades,” “gear,”
“tackle,” and “trim” as diverse items that are man-made. But he then goes on to include these things, along with
the preceding list, as part of God’s work.

Hopkins does not refer explicitly to human beings themselves, or to the variations that exist among them, in his
catalogue of the dappled and diverse. But the next section opens with a list of qualities (“counter, original, spare,
strange”) which, though they doggedly refer to “things” rather than people, cannot but be considered in moral
terms as well; Hopkins’s own life, and particularly his poetry, had at the time been described in those very terms.
With “fickle” and “freckled” in the eighth line, Hopkins introduces a moral and an aesthetic quality, each of which
would conventionally convey a negative judgment, in order to fold even the base and the ugly back into his
worshipful inventory of God’s gloriously “pied” creation.
3 Allen Curnow, Continuum

Continuum by Allen Curnow

Thomas Allen Munro Curnow was a New Zealand poet and journalist. A prominent satirist, the satirist in Curnow is
certainly not pushed aside in his poetic works, but is explored instead with a greater degree of emotional
connectivity and self reflection. His works concerning the New Zealand Landscape and the sense of isolation
experienced by one who lives in an island colony are perhaps his most moving and most deeply pertinent works
regarding the New Zealand condition. His poetry specially concerns landscape/isolation.The poem “Continuum” is
a poem on the continuity of poetic inspiration. The poetic source of stimulation of great poets since ages has been
the landscape. The moon has been a persistent metaphor for poetic inspiration in celebrated poems like Samuel
Coleridge’s “Dejection: An Ode. The poet’s quality of being a satirist is prominent here. He first asserts that the
moon rolls over the roof, and falls back. This is to imply that his poetic capabilities are sinking. Subsequently, he
goes on to substantiate that the moon does neither of these things, he is talking about himself. When poets do
generally stumble in poetic output or due to lack of inspiration, they tend to blame the external circumstances
.However, Here Allen Curnow asserts that the poet himself is to be blamed; for, Poetic inspiration comes from
within and not from outside.

Being sleepless is not an excuse for writing a poem. Sleeplessness does not necessarily allow one to ruminate over
a subject, or planet or subjective thoughts. The condition of insomnia can also be dodged conveniently by walking
barefoot on the front. The speaker is then visualized as an onlooker of nature. As he stands at the porch he
beholds an objective view of himself, as he discerns “across the privets/and the palms a ”washed out creation”.
This portion is a dark space. The poet moves to his satiric tone yet again. This dark space contains two particular
clouds, one was supposed to be a source of inspiration for the poet, and the other for his adversary-the other
fellow poet.

Bright clouds dusted(query) by the moon,one’s mine

The other’s an adversary,which may depend
on the wind or something.

The clouds seem to dust the moon for the poet in his quest/query for poetic stimulation. Nevertheless as one
cloud functions in his favour, the other (cloud) poses as an adversary that may shadow the cloud, accompanied by
the wind.Poetic brainwave or competence must not mar the other’s inspiration,for each poet has his
individualistic insight the springs from within,and does depend on external features.
The poet gets the feeling that he has overcome his writer’s block .As creativity begins in impulses, there are gaps.
The next gap is a long one, and obviously the next poetic impulse is not on time. Corresponding to the inner lack
of productivity, the feet outside lack warmth as the chill of the planking underfoot rises.

As the poet cringes for poetic output based on external inspiration, the night sky seems to empty all it contents
down, as in an action of excreting or vomiting. The speaker then turns on his bare heal and closes the door
signaling the end of his creative endeavour. This is He, the objective Author, feeding on this litter of the scenic sky
and employing his poetic tools in the process .Therefore, he is aptly the cringing demiurge.

The demiurge is a concept from the Platonic, Middle Platonic, and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy for an
artisan-like figure responsible for the fashioning and maintenance of the physical universe. Although a fashioner,
the demiurge is not quite the creator figure in the familiar monistic sense; both the demiurge itself and the
material from which the demiurge fashions the universe are the product of some other being.
The poet Allen Curnow asserts that he neither is he original, nor his poetic source of insight. This is because the
motivating stimuli did not spring from Him. It is objective, when it should be rather subjective.

Mood And Effect

In the poem continuum by Allen Curnow, the poet creates a sense of depression, loneliness and restlessness. This
in turn causes the reader to experience an effect of insignificance and powerlessness.

The restless mood is made clear in the first stanza when the poet is talking about the moon as a symbol for
himself. He explains that the moon “rolls behind the roof and falls behind my house” in an assumedly never
stopping, never ending cycle. This shows that he feels in much the same way, unable to stop the cycle of his
boring life. Also, the poet feels that it is “not possible to get off to sleep” and has to walk around. He also finds it
hard to get off the subject at hand, which is his poem, further proving that he is restless about his ideas.
Furthermore, a “long moment” passed since he went out the door, showing that he doesn’t notice the time gone,
which is common in restless people. This shows that he has been here writing his poem for such a long time and
doesn’t even feel tired. In addition, he can’t rest until he finished his poem, at which time he “picks up his litter”
and goes to bed. The fact that “paces” is used at the end shows that he still may not have recovered from his
restlessness as restless people pace around doing apparently nothing.

The poet is also depressed. this is shown by the fact that he feels insignificant amongst the stars and space. He
talks about “the dark place” and “washed out creation”. The fact that the poet believes that the world is a dark
place with only a few “bright clouds” shows how the poet is depressed and thinks that there is little hope in the
world for him. This shows the reader how insignificant and little each individual is when compared to the vastness
of the outside world. The fact that he thinks that even creation is washed out shows how he has lost hope for
everything that was pure and bright in the world. Also, his lack of regard for the world shows his loss of faith.

4 Edwin Muir, Horses

In the poems “Horses” by Edwin Muir and “The Planners” by Boey Kim Cheng, the poets show their attitude
towards the animal world and nature through the depiction of nostalgic experiences as well as the loss of nature,
both which help effectively convey the poets’ ideas.

In the poem “Horses”, the poet expresses the power and majesty of nature through the description of a
childhood memory. This is shown through quotations of the poet’s nostalgic thoughts; the horses seen through
the eyes of a young boy; their “hooves like pistons”, “conquering”, and “great hulks”. Here, the poet uses a
mechanical metaphor, comparing the horses’ power to that of a car engine. This is effective, as then the reader is
able to visualize and sense the physical power of the animal. Moreover, the dictation of the words “seraphim” and
“gold” enables the reader to discern the strong presence and value in nature. However, the horses are also
described as being “mute”, “ecstatic” “monsters” on the “mould”. This oxymoron presents the horses as being
deadly, yet happy, suggesting more to its significance, leading the reader to think deeper of the poet’s message;
the idea of reducing nature as our lives become mechanical, followed by the unveiling of the his hatred for
modernization. This aspect of the poem is also hinted at by the use of “mould”, an indication of our increasingly
repetitive, monotonous lives as we are constantly being moulded by our surroundings. This therefore
foreshadows the rest of the poem.

Furthermore, nearing the end of the poem, the poet starts to reveal the darker side of nature, and loss of
hope, through several negative connotations: the horses’ “smouldering” bodies, gleaming with a “cruel
apocalyptic light”. Through these biblical references to Hell, we feel the poet’s intense emotions towards the
arrival of evil, nearing apocalypse, and his world forever fading into darkness. This is especially effective, as
through the poet’s strong emotions, the subject is made personal, allowing the reader to reflect on not only the
poet’s message, but also himself as an individual. The poem fractures subsequently, the darkening tone now more
evident as the poet dictates his realization of the faded nature and loss of its presence. He then explains the
reason through “crystalline”, “black field” and “still-standing tree”; metaphors for his frozen memory and fading
life as the world continues to become more artificial, followed by the death of his childhood.

5 Judith Wright, Hunting Snake

This poem is considered one of the most simple poems , yet striking in its experience. It deals with a personal
feeling experienced by the poet who happened to meet a snake once. Her feeling at that moment is somewhat
confusing. She is bewildered between the sense of awe and fear and how these two contradictory feelings co-
exist and intermingle in a way that surprises not only the speaker but also the reader.

The poem is written in traditional four-line stanzas, a simple rhythm and rhyme pattern. The speaker opens the
poem with a perfect picture. It’s a wonderful weather “sun-warmed in this late season’s grace”, it’s autumn where
the weather is mostly warm and quiet. The first stanza suggests that everything seem in harmony, the sky is
gentlest and the pace is slow and romantic. Such words never bring in the reader’s mind any suspicion or doubt.
On the contrary, it suggests tranquility and romanticism. However, what breaks this silence and peaceful mood is
the appearance of great black snake” the image itself is shocking and horrifying. The reader never imagined the
reeling by snake. The vivid imagery used in this stanza sounds wonderful and appealing.

Moving on to the second stanza, the speaker starts giving a graphic description of that “great black snake, the
colour itself is terrifying and build an intense image that contradicts with the perfect picture she created earlier.
The speaker extends this horrific picture through the few lines that followed head down, tongue flickering on the
trail” the reader senses danger every where now. The speaker is building a dark, scary picture of a snake who is
wondering about looking for a prey in the grass. The quest that it is holding increases our tension especially when
she describes the falling of sun rays...

What mood does the poet create in this poem?

This poem is written by Judith Wright with the title Hunting Snake. This poem is about a two person that
walk in a garden or forest and they see a black big snake and the feeling is express in this poem, from the
beginning until the snake is gone and they start to walk again.
At the first line of the poem, it created a nice feeling or happy mood. The title of hunting snake created the
mood of extreme feeling like extreme with fear feeling in hunting. Then at the 3 rd-4th line it explains the snake
with fear feeling.
The writer write when 2 people walk in a forest with a word “Sun-warmed in this late season’s grace under
the autumn’s gentlest sky” mean a nice feeling with a beautiful gentlest sky. Then the writer write the word “froze
half-through a pace” means they hold a breath and they don’t move, because they were scared with a strong
scared feeling because of the word “The great black snake went reeling by” or a snake walk through and they
were scared. The word “we lost breath” or mean they lost their breath or their life stop for a while because of a
strong scared feeling when they saw the snake. Also it describe how predator is the snake in the word “head-
down, tongue flickering on the trail he quested through the parting grass” in the line 5-6.
Their eyes were still keep on watching the movement of the snake with the word “What track he
followed, what small food fled living form his fierce intent”, because of the snake is trying to catch the prey and
also they scared and keep watching the snake in the word “our eyes went with him as he went”. The word “we
scarcely thought; still as we stood our eyes went with him as he went”, with the meaning they eyes is keep on
watching the snake. Then the snake suddenly gone into the grass in the word “cold, dark and splendid he was
gone into the grass that hid his prey”. Then the word “We took a deeper breath of day, looked at each other, and
went on” means they took a deep breath and realize that the snake was gone and they relieved and went on the
walk again.
The conclusion of this essay that the writer express a feeling when the writer saw a big great black snake in
the city garden or maybe forest. So that each word that the writer write has a meaning and can be describe also it
connected with the feeling itself that the writer feels. So this poem contains a mood of fear and also happy
because they feel fear when the snake went down and when the snake gone into the grass they feel relieved and
happy.

6 Ted Hughes, Pike

The poem is one of the specimen of modern poetry

Ted Hughes was an avid angler from his boyhood days who enjoyed keenly fishing for the predatory pike. The pike
is a born killer - "killers from the egg." It survives by eating other fish and is also cannibalistic -"suddenly there
were two. Finally one." Ted Hughes tells us that this poem "Pike" grew out of his memories of his days of days of
pike fishing:

"By looking at the place in my memory very hard and very carefully, and by using words that grew naturally out of
the pictures and feelings, I captured not just a pike, I captured the whole pond including the monsters I never
even hooked."

The poem is anti-romantic for even as it describes in minute detail the beauties of nature it reminds the readers of
the violence and evil lurking deep inside it and relates it to our every day life:

"Stilled legendary depth:

It was as deep as England. It held
Pike too immense to stir, so immense and old
That past nightfall I dared not cast"

Darwin's theory of 'survival of the fittest' which is so vividly captured in the description of the two dead pikes is
equally true to the human condition:"one jammed past its gills down the other's gullet." The pond where the pike
live and survive by eating one another is as deep and complex as the web of human relationships in England: "it
was as deep as England."

Unlike for the romantics like Wordsworth for whom Nature was a source of comfort and joy and which always
rejuvenated them and revived their spirits, Nature for the Moderns like Ted Hughes provided objective
correlatives which taught them cruel and merciless lessons.

The Poem

“Pike” is written in free verse and consists of forty-four lines divided into eleven stanzas. The title focuses
immediate attention on the creature under scrutiny and on the natural world, which informs most of Ted
Hughes’s work. The poem can be divided into three sections or perspectives.

The first section, stanzas 1 and 2, sets the scene, depicting the voracious, ruthless nature of this fish and
establishing its green water world. In these first stanzas, Hughes maintains an objective narrative perspective in
which the fish and its environment

In Pike Hughes offers a far from Romantic view of nature in his depiction of this primitive and malevolent fish. The
poem begins with a description of a baby pike, and we are given the impression that right from the very moment
of birth this creature is in possession of some pretty chilling characteristics.

What does the Pike represent in the poem "Pike" by Ted Hughes? Ans.: Ted Hughes is one of the most famous
names in the contemporary world of poetry. 'Pike' is a thought-provoking poem by the 'Animal poet' Ted Hughes,
an eminent modern English poet. His poems show an inventiveness, a joy in the exercise of his art, that exists side
by side with a curiosity that is sometimes compassionate, sometimes simply fierce. The three inches long pike is
the protagonist of this poem. Its malevolent and voracious disposition, cruelty and cannibalistic nature cover the
core of the poem. Outwardly it is a charming fish of fresh water with green stripes over its golden body. As the
poet points out, pike is a killer fish; it is born to kill. Even a newly born pike has an ancient, spiteful grin. Pikes ravel
in dancing on the surface of water as they are very aware of the powers they hold. This understanding of their
capacity to dominate over other fishes gives a continual motion and joy to their nature. Despite their frightful
nature they are exquisite with their majestic grandeur in their color and movement; sometimes they are awe-
struck at their own beauty. Their shapes produce on the onlookers an impression of mixed delicacy and horror.
They small to our eyes they are very large in the world to which they belong. To the smaller creatures, which they
kill under the water, they appear very large. They dwell in ponds where they lie still in the darkness beneath the
surface. They lie on the last year's black leaves, which are submerged in the water and from there they look
upwards. Their jaws have the shape of a hooked clamp and inside the jaws are their teeth whose sharpness
cannot be blunted at this stage of their existence which has been mould by their environment. They dominate
over other fishes despite their tiny, little size. In the sub-terranean world they are held as monarchs. With
machine-like jaws they wait for other creatures and when they see a victim they open up their jaws and half-
swallowing other pikes or fishes they masticate their teeth within them. This poem reveals Ted Hughes's thoughts
about the evil nature of human being through the features of a ferocious fish Pike. Once in his childhood the poet
had kept four pikes in an aquarium which gradually reduced to one.

Introduction
The Introduction to "Pike" can be found in "Poetry in the making" as Ted Hughes states:"Here, in this next poem,
is one my prize catches. I used to be a very keen angler for pike, as I still am when I get the chance, and I did most
of my early fishing in a quite small lake, really a large pond. This pond went down to a great depth in one place.
Sometimes on hot days, we would see something like a railway sleeper lying near the surface, and there certainly
were huge pike in that pond. I suppose they are even bigger by now. Recently I felt like doing some pike fishing,
but in circumstances where there was no chance of it, and over the days, as I remembered the extreme pleasures
of that sport, bits of the following poem began to arrive. You will see by looking at the place in my memory very
hard and very carefully, and by using the words that grew naturally out of the pictures and feelings. I captured not
just a pike, I captured the whole pond, including the monsters I never hooked."

The poet emphasizes the perfection of the Pike in the first stanza. The pike appears to be just perfect in
dimension:"three inches long, perfect."The whole body of the pike has green and yellow stripes across it. The
killer-instinct exists right from the hatching of the egg. This violent streak is hereditary: it goes generations back:
"the malevolent aged grin."They stage a dance on the surface attracting the flies, asserting their presence. Hughes
has always utilized animals as an exaggerated metaphor for the instinctual inclination of Man.

Explication
They move stunned and overcome by their own grandeur; exhibiting narcissistic tendencies in the process. The
alga appears as a bed of emerald. As one looks from above the waters, their silhouette appears magnified and the
length is pronounced :"a hundred feet long in their world."The line may also signify the flamboyance of the Pike. It
is fragile; and holds the enigma and secrecy of submarines.In the ponds, they are found also below the heat of the
lily pads. They can be discovered in the shadow of the flower's stillness. Either they are attached as logs to last
year's leaves or appear to hang in a cavern of weeds.

The jaws are perfectly formed 'clamped' to easily prey upon their victims, and the fangs haunt since generations.
There appears to be no change in the practical utility of these preying instruments. Theirs is a life subdued to its
instrument-the fan and jaw-the purpose is relegated to the practicality of the situation. The kneading of the gills
and the pectorals involuntarily perform their respective functions.
Fry (the young ones of fish) are kept in a glass jar, for the pike to prey on. There were three of these small fish. As
these kept disappearing, the Pike seemed to get bigger and bigger.

With the pike having devoured the other fishes, it now had a sagging belly. It held the grin that it was born with.
This particular grin is more pronounced now as the fish is satisfied. The truth is that they spare nobody, even their
own kind as the poet talks of two pikes "six pounds each, over two feet long". They are dead in the willows as one
gets choked while swallowing up the other. One jammed past its gills down the other's gullet. The part of the pike,
being eaten, projected its eye with the same firmness (iron) that was characteristic of the species, as the film of
the fish shrank in death.

The pond that the poet fished in had lilies and tench that foregrounded the scene .The tench is a fresh water fish
of the carp family ,that had a tenacious grip over life. Therefore, its exuberance seemed to exist and "outlast" the
preexisting stones in the pond. The term 'monastery' refers to how the stones were ordained to live a secluded
life: but the blossoming of the lilies and the liveliness of the tench had relegated their concerns.

As Hughes refers to the "depth" note the reference to the depth in the introduction to the poem above. This
'depth' is by itself 'legendary' as it is emblematic of the deep-rooted heritage that England is synonymous with.
This depth was 'stilled' or static not meant to change with ravages of time. The Pike was not only an aspect of this
heritage; it was an inherent part of man's basic nature as this violent streak is universal .The human -being also
has this killer/survival instinct right when he cracks from the egg. This instinct is inborn, but the sophistication that
he develops is acquired. Nevertheless, this aggression behavior remains in this subconscious.This killer instinct is a
metaphor for the revolutionary instinct of England that makes its heritage what it is today

Fishing: A Metaphor of Self-Discovery

The poet silently engaged himself in fishing. In the poem, fishing stands as a metaphor of 'self-discovery'. The hair
that had grown after his birth, was a symbol of his sophistication; as he probed his roots, it had frozen. In the
darkness of the night, the poet 'fished 'for the slightest sign of instinct-"for what might move, what eye might
move." In contrast, to the deeper concentration of the poet, the splashes seemed conspicuous in the still of the
night. The nocturnal owls seemed to be hushing up the floating woods that appeared to be floating to the poet in
his partial dream. Beneath the night's darkness another darkness was revealed (freed)-that of the poet's."That
rose slowly towards me, watching."This was the poet's other self that he encountered-his darker side.
When one grasps the real meaning of the poem, one comprehends that what the poet referred to in the
Introduction to the poem as "quite small lake" is really his refined self. As he reaches the phase of self discovery,
he asserts that he caught all the inherent irrational impulses in him:" I captured not just a pike, I captured the
whole pond, including the monsters I never hooked."This is his "prize catch."

7 Christina Rossetti, A Birthday

Christina Rossetti – ‘A Birthday’

This wonderfully happy poem was written when the English poet Christina Rossetti was 27 years old, and
expresses the tremendous joy and excitement that you may feel when you see or meet the person you truly love.
Why, you may wonder, is it called ‘A Birthday’? Well, look what the poet writes in line 15, when she says that her
love coming to her is “the birthday of my life”, the day, she suggests, when her life really begins.

Everything in the first stanza speaks of the happiness she sees around her, and the repeated expression ‘My heart
is like . . . ‘ stresses this joy, but she says at the end of the first stanza that she is even happier than all of these
things – why?

The second stanza says that she would like to surround herself with the richest and most exotic things to
celebrate the arrival of “my love”.

Look at how the language changes between each stanza – in the first (apart from the word ‘halcyon’) it is simple
and easy, while in the second it is much richer and less everyday.
Language and tone

Repetition

There is a marked amount of repetition in A Birthday

 Each alternate line in the first verse begins ‘My heart is like’ (lines 1, 3, 5, 7). This emphasises the speaker’s
struggle to find the language to describe her emotions and serves as a link between her own subjectivity
and the external nature she observes
 The poem ends, ‘Is come, my love is come to me’ (line 16). By drawing attention to the word ‘come’, the
speaker expresses her joy at the return of her lover and highlights the arrival of the fulfilment of the time
of waiting that she has undergone.

Alliteration

The frequency of alliterated words in A Birthday emphasise its flowing pace and the rhythms of the natural world.

Investigating language and tone

 Think about the voice that emerges

o Does this voice bring out any particular emotions?
o How far are you able to identify with the poetic speaker?
 For ease of reading, a feminine pronoun has been used to discuss the speakers of this poem.
o What evidence is there to suggest that either speaker is actually a woman?
o Would a difference in gender mean that you read the poems any differently?
 Do you consider that the speaker displays traits traditionally ascribed to a male or female voice?

Structure and versification

Metre

The first verse of A Birthday is written in strict iambic tetrameter. This creates a song-like rhythm and means that
a stress consistently falls on the word ‘heart’.

In the second verse, 4 out of the 7 lines begin with a trochee. Here, the stress falls on the verbs ‘Rise’, ‘Hang’,
‘Carve’ and ‘Work’ (lines 9, 10 , 11 , 13). By breaking out of the regular metrical scheme of the first verse, these
trochees highlight the urgency of the speaker to create something new to celebrate the return of her love.

In the poem, “A Birthday”, Christina Rossetti uses extensive and positive imagery, mostly pertaining to natural
descriptions. In fact, the whole poem is composed of imagery, that are all solely for the purpose of relaying the
sense of pure joy the speaker is feeling. The first line starts off with “My heart is like a singing bird” which gives
the impression that her heart feels as elated as a bird does when singing. Another example is, “My heart is like an
apple tree whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit.” This illustrates the fact that just like the apple tree with its
limbs full of apples, the speaker’s heart is also “full” which could mean they are content, fulfilled, at peace, or
something along those lines. The speaker also says “My heart is like a rainbow shell,” a colorful image possibly
meaning that her “colorful” heart means the speaker feels vibrant and bright. Obviously the first part of the poem
explains the emotions that the speaker is feeling. The second part of the poem is more focused on celebratory
imagery, celebrating the speaker’s anticipation for the “birthday of their life.” It’s clearly known that the speaker
is in love when they say “Carve it in doves and pomegranates,” since both doves and pomegranates symbolize
love and romance. From these examples it can be confirmed that the speaker gives a lot of picturesque examples
meant for explaining how the speaker passionately feels ecstatic, happy, and in love. Most of the imagery
mentions natural things like plants, animals, etc. and this poem describes the speaker’s joy and bliss, which means
that the speaker associates nature with feelings of happiness and romance.

ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE

The poem is not actually based on a physical person - her love, but on religion. A birthday symbolizes new
beginnings and new birth, the beginning she is writing about is her faith in God, her new religion. If you look up a
basic biography of Christina Rossetti you can read more about her life in regards to religion. The peacock is a
symbol of Christianity, pomegranates are a sign of resurrection and eternal life in the Christian church and the
dove is a symbol of the presence of the Holy Spirit. The poem is based on Rossetti\'s discovery of Christianity and
the peace that it brings her heart. Her birthday refers to her rebirth and can be seen as directly referring to her
baptism or to her general new beginning as a Christian.

If one is to look at this poem from a religious viewpoint, as much of her work did, then A Birthday would not refer
to a physical birthday but to a spiritual one. The peacock symbolizes Christianity. The dove symbolizes the Holy
Spirit. The pomegranates symbolize the resurrection, symbols Christina would know and envision for her poem.
The dais too would remind her of the church and her going forward to give her heart to God.
The title of the poem makes sense when the final two lines of the poem are read. Here her love coming to her is
described as ‘the birthday of my life’.

The poem is saturated with sensuous vocabulary, which students should explore fully. Unfamiliar words such as
‘dais’ and archaic words such as ‘vair’ are explained in the glossary. Some students are likely to benefit from
researching what pomegranates and peacocks look like.

There is a clear contrast between the content of each stanza. The first deals with actual images of nature and the
second with the artificial and exotic images of nature (e.g. ‘gold and silver grapes’).

The first stanza describes the extent of the speaker’s happiness. The final line makes it clear that she is happier
than all the things she describes because her love is coming to her. In the second stanza she wishes to immerse
herself in rich and beautiful surroundings in order to celebrate her love coming to her.

8 Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Woodspurge

“The Woodspurge” is a sixteen-line poem in four-line stanzas written by Dante Gabriel Rosetti. An outdoor setting
is described, in which an unknown individual wanders, sits down and, in an emotional state, observes the details
of a woodspurge — a European herb with greenish yellow flowers and that has a three-part blossom.

-Stanza1
The poems first stanza introduces the reader to a green setting and focuses on the wind and the narrator’s
movement. The narrotors mood can be started to be interperated.‘‘walked on at the wind's will'’ suggests a sense
of aimlessness and passivity. 'wind was still' he sat, showing that he was not very aware of his actions and too
absorbed in his thoughts . Repetition is also used in this stanza, wind and I are repeated. The first stanza focuses
on the wind and the narrator's movement, which mimics the wind patterns. As Rossetti writes, "I had walked on
at the wind's will/ — I sat now, for the wind was still." The remainder of the poem echoes this stillness, focusing
on the narrator's stationary features and inner emotions.
-Stanza2
In stanza 2, the narrators posture is described. The way the person sits on the grass, hunched over with its head
between its kness close to the ground shows how depressed and insecure it feels.By referring to its lips,hair and
ears, explains the mental state its in. ‘Said not Alas\ means that suffering from such mental pain, cannot even
groan aloud or speak a word of grief' or how the person cannot find words to express his feelings. The narrator
remains in this position for an unknown length of time but long enough that he or she “heard the day pass”. The
narrator talks about his or her ears as being 'naked', giving a sense that has feels detached from the world. These
sensory details help to place the reader into the scene.
Also in stanza 2, alliteration is used ‘naked ears heard ’ the ‘e’ sound is repeated. Repetition is also used, also
continuing to stanza four, 4 lines each start with the word ‘my’.

In the second and third stanzas, Rossetti highlights his subject's physical characteristics, including his or her lips,
hair, ears, and eyes:

My lips, drawn in, said not Alas!

My hair was over in the grass,
My naked ears heard the day pass[.]

My eyes, wide open, had the run

Of some ten weeds to fix upon;

-Stanza3
In the third stanza, the narrator, finally having a connection with its sorrounding, coming more to his senses, fixes
its eyes on a woodspurge. This may show how in a moment of grief and depression the attention of a person can
be captured on the smallest thing and its details. An unsignificant detail. The line “My eyes, wide open, had the
run” lets the readers know about the sudden changes in the narrators attitude. The narrator notices the
woodspurge amongst the other weeds, and remarks that it flowers as “three cups in one”. Unintentionally, the
narrator may be relating its situation to the flowers and the weeds. Maybe this can be reflecting that what had
been disturbing and was on his way(the weeds) have a woodspurge together with them, and he may now be
realizing his problems and seeing how hard they are to overcome.

-Stanza4
In the final stanza when Rossetti writes, “From perfect grief there need not be/ Wisdom or even memory/ One
thing then learnt remains to me/ — The woodspurge has a cup of three.” the reader recognizes the narrator’s true
sadness, and in these lines an importance and significance is given to the woodspurge. He says that grief wont
bring wisdom and maybe wont even be very remembered, and there shouldnt be anything learnt from it,and
what had visually overwhelmed him would stay in its memory, but alone. I think this sentence summarizes this
stanza and the poem greatly:‘Rossetti emphasizes the mundane details that people remember in times of acute
emotional pain.’(Caroline Healey)
-Closing Sentence:
In conclusion, we can say that this poem shows the psychology of a person experiencing great sadness, mental
and emotional distress, acute mental awareness. Even when the emotions started to fade, the memory of the
single detail remained. We can also say that nature plays an indirect role, like a background, for the presentation
of the persons responses and feelings in certain conditions. Rosetti had used nature for the same purpose, for
helping him to portray the state and situations of people, in his other poems and also in his paintings.

In The Woodspurge" Dante Gabriel Rossetti uses plain and forceful language to recreate a moment of
contemplation and grief. He narrates a basic scene from the perspective of an unknown person in which the
individual wanders in a natural setting, sits down, and, in an emotional state, observes the details of a particular
woodspurge — a European herb with greenish yellow flowers. His inclusion of such sensory detail helps place the
reader in the scene. Not until the final stanza, however, does the reader recognize the narrator's true inner
sadness, when Rossetti writes, "From perfect grief there need not be/ Wisdom or even memory/ One thing then
learnt remains to me/ — The woodspurge has a cup of three." Lending such great importance to the woodspurge
in the poem's final line, Rossetti emphasizes the mundane details that people remember in times of acute emotional pain.
9 Kevin Halligan, The Cockroach

The Cockroach' by Kevin Halligan is a poem about reflection on life through watching the movement of a
cockroach. Through the use of structure, detailed description of cockroach as an extended metaphor of the
persona, the theme of confusion and realization of life is well conveyed.
Halligan describes a frantic movement of the cockroach throughout the poem. The title foreshadows and reveals
that the poem is about a small and trifle insect- a cockroach. However, the poem opens with the exaggeration of
it 'a giant cockroach'. This highlights that he is observing it very closely feeling as if it is a 'giant'. The word 'giant'
also conveys that it is not only an insect but also a device to reflect on life giving it great importance with the
repetition of word 'cockroach' in the title and first line. The movement of the cockroach is closely described. The
detailed description draws an image of the cockroach in the readers' minds and this allows them to engage in the
poem. It 'pace' 'skirting' 'jog' 'circle' 'flip' 'climb' signifying that the persona is watching the cockroach as if it is a
human being not a trifle insect in an objective view. This foreshadows the twist at the end which is that the poet is
the subject of the poem. The persona can even sense how it feels and thinks; 'he seemed quite satisfied' 'he
looked uncertain where to go'. These illustrate that the cockroach begins to feel distracted and confused
suggesting that the persona involves his thoughts to it. Therefore this, in turn, involves the readers in the poem
furthermore.
The cockroach is an extended metaphor of the persona and human being. The cockroach moves through 'a path
between the wainscot and the door' which symbolizes a steady path that people follow early in life. But, 'soon he
turned to jog in crooked rings' suggests human being's confusion in later life reinforcing a sense of confusion of
human being through an image of cockroach. Following Halligan, the readers also sense the confusion and pain in
the poem creating an interest for the poem- for the scene of a cockroach moving. The sense of confusion
continues to be expressed through dictions 'restlessness' 'flipping right over' 'victim for a mild attack'. The line
'flipping right over' symbolizes the change in tone and change in the way that poem develops; from the
description of a cockroach to realization of the self.

10 Margaret Atwood, The City Planners

"The City Planners" - Margaret Atwood - Critical Analysis

Introduction:

Margaret Atwood, is a Canadian author, poet, critic, essayist, feminist and social campaigner. Best known as a
novelist, she is also an award-winning poetess. As John Wilson Foster rightly comments, “her verse is that of a
psychic individual at sea in a materialist society." "The City-Planners” is critical of the monotony and false beauty
of modern cities, suburbs and its architecture. The poem views modern life as empty, artificial, and its inhabitants
as robotic and lacking in spirit.

Land in the City vs Rural Land:

The land in the city has a great contrast with the rural land. The influx of people moving from rural to urban areas
keeps on increasing to this day. This form of displacement is also known as internal migration. Rural land is often
viewed as more fertile and vast, whereas land in the city is limited and so space is used to the maximum. As more
and more people move to cities in search of work and better standards of living, land becomes scarcer.

Living in such an environment with only concrete, steel and buildings, man consequently becomes more
mechanical, stressed and partially dehumanized. The absence of vast land in cities deprives the harmony that a
huge area of empty land provides. This absence of land in cities is severely criticized by Margaret Atwood in this
poem where "the houses in pedantic rows" shows lack of warmth.

The Victory of Science over Nature:

The theme of this poem is perfection, uniformity, man’s attempts to control nature, and lust of power (the city
planners). As the poet moves about in a residential area, she is offended by the "sanities" of the area. The word
'sanities' may possess a double meaning here. Firstly, it may allude to the unnatural 'sanitariness' of the place.
Secondly, it may denote the saneness of minds, or soundness that render them sophisticated, uniform and
therefore boring. The "dry
August sunlight" alludes to the province from which the speaker hails: Canada. The houses in rows appear too
pedantic to be real. The trees have the appearance of being planted to render the scene picture-perfect. The
levelness of surface further provokes the poetess as it appears to be a rebuke to the dent in their car door. There
is no shouting there ,no shatter of glass. No instinctive action takes place here: everything is after-thought and
preplanned. There are no shouts here, no loud wants as people are economically well-off and complacent. The
only noise is the rational whine of a power mower. It is that rationality that makes this noise 'a voice'. In the era of
applied technology, this sound is more pleasing to the ears than emotional echoes. The power mower cut a
straight swath in the discouraged grass; and thus established the victory of Science over Nature.
Empty, Monotonous Lives of the People in the Cities:
Throughout the second stanza there has been absolutely no mention of any human movement, making it seem as
if the sub-division is empty. This could metaphorically indicate that the people living here live empty, monotonous
lives that are without meaning. The driveways neatly side-step hysteria by revealing even roads. that appear like
mathematical units. Even a domestic entity like a coiled pipe appears as poisonous as a snake, as it is out of place.
The windows portray a fixed-stare as though everything is static, and nothing is kinetic.
The natural scenery appears to be at the back of this residential area. The speaker hopes that the future cracks in
the plaster will enable one to view the breathtaking natural view behind. She also admits that, “the houses in
pedantic rows, the planted sanitary trees, offend us with their transitory lines, rigid as wooden borders”.
Man's mistakes seem to offer more than his creations in this stanza. The poet is trying to give power back to
nature here, and stating that nature will eventually, definitely rise once again and break down these suburbs.
The Reality of the Real Estate Agency:
Stanza three is the end of complaints and shows the consequences of being so greedy. It also shows the reality of
the real estate agency. These City Planners - calculating and manipulative in their approach to reach their ends are
no less than political conspirators. In such a situation, they will be subjected to unsurveyed territories they had
not even envisaged. They will be hidden from each other, where competitiveness will take a back-seat.

Blindness and Confusion of the City:

Margaret Atwood claims that there will come an inevitable stage when nature will ultimately conquer. Houses will
capsize into clay seas. Is the poetess foreboding a natural disaster, most probably a Tsunami? It would the only
take a minute to put to years of city-planning to naught. They will appear like glaciers then. The speaker utilizes
the metaphor of ice to connote transience. Nobody notices how fleeting all this is. Blizzards and snows are used as
an extended metaphor for the blindness and confusion of a city that is completely bland and uniform, in which the
people do not even realise how routine and structured their lives and the suburbia in general are in reality.
Conclusion:
The poem eventually envisages the city planners’ consequences of being greedy, and ends by saying that, the
creations of these city planners will inevitably be destroyed by nature. To counteract the disturbing effect upon
the human mind, land must be used in an effective manner. Land is essential to instil serenity in people's lives. To
sustain the availability of land in cities, housing must be carefully planned so as to minimize the use of land. Green
architects are required to maintain this balance between building and nature.

11 Boey Kim Cheng, The Planners

The planners
 In “The Planners” however, the relation to nature is shown through, the non-presence of nature itself. The
subject is mentioned early in the poem, through “They plan. They build.” These short, direct sentences,
metaphors for the direct, limited creativity that lies in the minds of the Planners, not only immediately establishes
the idea in the reader’s mind, but also sums up the poem, all of which add to its significance. The poet goes on to
emphasize the pedantic nature of the planners through effective use of mathematical vocabulary, like the
“gridded” spaces and roads in “alignment”. This is forceful, as it shows us how they have the power to shape and
modify a city any way they want, as well as the fervent influence of logic, and lack of creativity in their work. The
dominance of the Planners is further enhanced through their manipulation of nature, so much that “even the sea
draws back” and “the skies surrender”; personification of nature giving in and bending down under the weight of
the Planners.

In addition, the manipulation of nature and aftermath of the planners is further elaborated on through the
skillful use of an extended metaphor, in which the poet associates the planner’s work to that of a dentist. Here,
the city is personified, to be the patient of the Planners, having their “flaws” and “blemishes” “erased”. The use of
‘cosmetic’ related words suggest that although it just looks as though the planners have fixed the flaws, that they
have merely hidden, and not deleted them, thus resulting in a superficial city with no real beauty; no real “face”.
Next, the poet mentions that in this city, his “heart would not bleed poetry”, expressing the deep influence of
logic in the lifestyle in the city, so potent that art and culture is not part of, and does not belong in this society;
that he does not belong in this society. In addition, the use of time-related terms: “last century” and the paradox
“past’s tomorrow” insinuate that the actions of the Planners are slowly destroying not only the past and present,
but also the future, ultimately leaving a city with no history or culture; an empty shell.

In both poems, the poets have shown their strong feelings of anger and despondency towards the
aftermath of human actions on nature towards through the depiction of nostalgic experiences as well as the non-
presence of nature. This, as well as the clear element of time in both poems, has helped make them a lot more
personal, allowing the reader to relate to and thus have a better understanding of the subject, contributing to its
effectiveness.

12 Norman MacCaig, Summer Farm

Biographical Information
• MacCaig was born in Edinburgh in 1910 and divided his time, for the rest of his life, between his native city and
Assynt in the Scottish Highlands from where his mother’s family came from.
• He was schooled at the Royal High School and studied classics at the University of Edinburgh.
• During World War II MacCaig registered as a conscientious objector, a move that many at the time criticised. For
the early part of his working life, he was employed as a school teacher in primary schools.
• His first collection, Far Cry, was published in1943. He continued to publish throughout his lifetime and was
extremely prolific in the amount that he produced.
• In 1967 he was appointed Fellow in Creative Writing at Edinburgh. He became a reader in poetry in 1970, at the
University of Stirling.
Metaphysics
• Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy investigating principles of reality transcending those of any particular
science.
It is concerned with explaining the ultimate nature of being and the world.
• It relates to questions that cannot be answered in factual terms. i.e. science maytell us how the universe works,
but why it exists is a metaphysical question.
Analysis
• In the first stanza MacCaig examines the world around him. While this examination can be viewed as a mere
description of a setting for the poem, it also speaks for the thought process of the narrator (MacCaig). He
considers the vast scale of the world but also its detail and preciseness.
• This random preciseness “hang zigzag” “nine ducks go wobbling by in two straight lines” leads the narrator into
metaphysical thought and the next stanza, as he questions, why?
• The second stanza contains dual meaning. One meaning is a continuation of the description of setting
The second meaning looks at how MacCaig’s observation leads him into deep thought. The swallow is used as a
metaphor of his thought, free to roam through the “sky”. As the “hen stares at nothing with one eye”, so does the
narrator gaze at his surroundings absent-mindedly. “A swallow falls”, suddenly a thought comes to him “out of an
empty sky” and he gains a flicker of understanding or emotion as the thought is “flickering through the barn
”before it “dives up again into the dizzy blue” and he loses his train of thought. The word dizzy conveys a sense of
confusion afterwards.
• The third stanza is the beginning of a change of focus in the poem. Until now MacCaig has focused his attention
on those things outside of him and he now redirects his thought toward himself. This change is immediately
denoted by the use of “I”
MacCaig shows fear at the idea of contemplating something that we cannot understand and not knowing what
thoughts it will lead him to. The prospect of metaphysical thought: trying to make sense of an idea that cannot be
solved in a logical way is daunting.
• MacCaig’s conscious now leaves him, in a figurative sense, so as to better see himself, or try and view himself
objectively. The grasshopper, representing MacCaig’s conscious, “unfolds his legs”, jumps free of himself. “Finding
himself in space” refers to his conscious being above himself as he looks down upon the world and himself within
the farm. threaded on time” is a portrayal of the idea that he (his perception of things) is just the now, there is
also versions(different perceptions) of himself in the past and the future, the “pile of selves…threaded on time”.
• The “metaphysic hand” is his mind reaching out and looking beyond the farm, lifting “the farm like a lid”, and
seeing the past and future of the farm as well as his own as they are intertwined in the present. What he sees
when he lifts the farm is described in the last line, “farm within farm, and in the centre, me”. This shows that like
himself, there are more farms in
the past and future and that he is in the centre.
• Overall, this illustrates the metaphysical idea that we are just the now, there is also the infinite nature of the
past and present which we can imagine or consider but not understand. Further interpretations that can be taken
from the last stanza are that in removing his conscious from himself and conceiving the idea of his perspective
changing over time he “brings discontinuity and instability to the self” and has “wrenched it both from its original
contemplative and fusional unity with the world and from its eternal self-sufficient wholeness, into an agonising
and lonely consciousness of itself”
• This sense of multiple selves changing over time means that “the self as such no longer appears as the enduring
core substance of the personality, but an extremely problematic concept which can never be fully comprehended
but only glimpsed”
• This sense of loss of identity is the consequence of his metaphysical thought which he was so afraid of in stanza
3. “Having bypassed the objective reality of the world around him, the subject is now caught up in the
contemplation of himself.” The use of the subjective pronoun “I” in the latter part of the poem changes to the
objective “me”. MacCaig ends up “naming and pinpointing himself at the cost of losing his own truth” in an
attempt to gain an illusive image of himself. “For the subject cannot (or must not) be objectified nor be studied in
an objective way”
• The “I” in the poem rhyming with the “eye” in the second stanza indicating that it is the conscious viewing “me”
the object that MacCaig is trying to “see” which is also a rhyme.

Poetic Devices/Techniques
• MacCaig uses two similes in the first stanza to create a detailed image in our minds as to what he is seeing.
“Straws like tame lightnings” creates the image of the sharp crooked nature of lightning reflected in a less
extreme, “tame”, way by the straw.
• The second simile, “green as glass”, is a strange one as one would not normally consider glass to be green.
However MacCaig’s use of this phrase vivifies the idea that the water is still and calm without having to say so.
MacCaig also uses the alliteration of like, lightnings and lie in the first stanza. As mentioned earlier, this creates a
calm feeling by slowing down the reader
• The first line of the second stanza ends unfinished, the rest of the sentence is the beginning of the second line,
“then picks it up”. This emphasises the idea of picking it up, of having a thought, as mentioned earlier.
• The hen in this stanza also acts as a metaphor for people and the way they think
The rest of the second stanza is written with commas so as to separate out the swallow’s journey into three
pieces, a pause between each. By splitting up the journey it further reflects the idea it represents, that of thought.
• The calm state of mind is further emphasised in the third stanza. MacCaig uses commas to slow down the reader
and the long vowel sound in cool to create this effect
• The second line of the stanza leaves us hanging on the dash (-) as we consider where the poem is leading us just
as MacCaig ponders where his thoughts might take him. The dash then serves as a link to the rest of the stanza to
compare the way the grasshopper is jumping to the way the narrator is “afraid of where a thought might take”
them, “in space”.
• MacCaig’s use of animals in metaphors to describe human thought is ironic considering that animals are
considered incapable of deep thought, especially chickens and insects. In this way
MacCaig suggests that humans are but animals in the face of the mysteries of the universe. commas to slow down
the reader and make them think about what they are reading.
• This is most obvious in the last line of the stanza and poem which is split up into three parts, each of which
builds up the main idea.
• MacCaig uses the simile lifting “the farm like a lid” with a “metaphysic hand”. The metaphysic hand is his mind
looking beyond the farm now and seeing what was and what will be.
Summer Farm has an obvious rhyme scheme of AABB CCDD AEFF GGHH. The AE lines may have been intended to
rhyme, but the break in the rhyme scheme leads to a noticed change that places emphasis on this line.
• There appears to be no specific meter which ties to the idea that the poem is a stream of consciousness

13 Elizabeth Brewster, Where I Come From

Biographical Information

• Elizabeth Brewster was born in 1922 in the small lumber town of Chipman,
New Brunswick, Canada.
• As a young poet in the 1940s, Elizabeth Brewster wrote in an almost desperate attempt to order the chaos of
her own psyche.
• Most of Brewster’s early poetry was based on rural and small-town rather than urban experience and that it was
mainly traditional in form. The bulk of her poems centre around trees, oceans, cabins and childhood recollections,
Summary
The key idea of the poem seems to be that a person’s character is always formed at least in part by the place
where he or she is born – “People are made of places”. Wherever you go in life you will carry with you memories
and echoes of your birthplace, whether it is a city, as in the first stanza, or the quiet Canadian countryside where
Elizabeth herself was born –
“Where I come from, people carry woods in their minds” – and certainly the picture she draws in the second
stanza does seem at first to be idyllic and wonderful, strongly contrasting with the city images in the first stanza.
This idea shows us that who we are is shaped by where we were born and where we grew up, but this is not the
end of the shaping process, as the first line suggests ‘People are made of places’, you are shaped as much by
where you were born and grew up as the places that you go to after your childhood, the things that you
experience in other places, the things that you see.
Stanza 1
• This stanza deals with the organized and fast paced life of the city. In the city everything is precise and
controlled; everything runs like clockwork.
• Line 1-3: The first two lines of the poem summarise the main theme of the poem perfectly. ‘People are made of
places.’ As the theme suggests people will never be able to forget their past, or where they came from.
People will always be able to tell where you come from ‘They carry with them hints of jungles or mountains, a
tropic grace or the cool eyes of seagazers.’
• Line 3-4: ‘Atmosphere of cities how different drops from them’ The author is trying to show that the
atmosphere of the place you live in can affect the way that you live, throughout the year as nature progresses
through its seasons, atmospherically city life changes greatly. Stanza 1
• Line 4-5: ‘Like the smell of smog or the almost-not-smell of tulips in the spring’, smog telling us about a typical
winters day with density of the air being greater and the water vapor blinding our site, ‘the almost-not-smell of
tulips in the spring’ this tells us how the flowers of spring are starting to blossom, not fully produced and grown
the smell of the tulips can not yet be appreciated fully and with the combined smells of the city one could think
that they are smelling the tulips when actually the city life prevents the scent of the tulip to a high degree.
• Line 6-7: The idea of the city being organized and tidily planned out is introduced in these lines, ‘nature tidily
plotted in little squares with a fountain in the center’, telling us that within the city life, nature still exists in public
parks, which have been plotted around the city in small areas to provide the reassurance of sanity within the
community, that nature still exists within the city environment but is scarce and nature cannot go about its
business how intended to because of the interruptions of city life and pollution.
Stanza 1
• Line 7-8: ‘museum smell, art also tidily plotted with a guidebook’. This compares the tidily plotted countryside to
tidily plotted art in an art museum, with a guidebook. The guide book can be a metaphor for life, we try to control
everything, to guide ourselves through life instead of taking one step at a time.
• Line 9-10: ‘the smell of work, glue factories maybe, chromium-plated offices’, the city is full of skyscraping office
buildings built of steel and other sharp precise materials to give a uniform look and feel to the atmosphere, also
with great complexes comes great amounts of pollution, which
Elizabeth is relating to with ‘the smell of work, glue factories maybe’.
• Line 10-11: In the end of the stanza ‘smell of subways crowded at rush hours’, this shows the congestion that is
caused by overpopulation of the city. It also shows how rushed life in the city is. Also it shows that at the end of
the day, no matter where you come from, if you work in chromium plated offices or glue factories, everyone has
the same goal and that is to get home. Stanza 2
• The second stanza introduces an idea change in the poem. The focus of the poem now shifts more to country
and rural life; similar to that in which Brewster herself grew up in.
• Line 12-13: These lines provide us with key details in which we can relate to Brewster’s childhood, ‘Where I
come from, people carry woods in their minds, acres of pine woods’. Coming from New Brunswick, Canada, is 80%
forested and so the forest or ‘woods’ will always be in the peoples minds as it is the centre of the little
community.
• Line 14: People here care about things that people in the city would laugh at, like ‘blueberry patches in the
burned-out bush’. To the people in the community this is relatively significant as it is the growing of something
new where before there was nothing. Stanza 2
• Life 15: ‘wooden farmhouses, old, in need of paint’. This is in direct contrast to the first stanza where everything
is new and attractive. The old farmhouses are there solely to serve a purpose and until they stop serving that
purpose they will be kept, regardless of looks.
• Line 16-17: Brewster portrays a farming life with the ideas of chickens and hens kept in yards, generally used to
provide a source of food in the form of eggs, or literally speaking the chickens themselves. Also the chickens and
hens being kept in yards, shows us that in the country there is the room to spare to be able to keep these chickens
and hens, whereas in conjunction with the first stanza, the chickens would not be kept as there is no room noris
there any need to keeping the chickens and hens.
• Line 17-18: ‘The battered schoolhouse’ again places emphasis on it being an old building remaining only for
practical purposes and not being replaced by a more attractive building. ‘behind which violets grow’ just backs up
the earlier line of ‘blueberry’s growing in the burnt out bush’, it shows how nature can create a picture of beauty
anywhere, out of anything. Stanza 2
• Line 18-19: ‘Spring and winter are the mind’s chief seasons: ice and the breaking of ice.’ Spring and winter are
two opposing seasons and winter could therefore represent the cold city life and spring the colorful country life.
‘Ice and breaking of ice’ refers to something in the mind that is broken when one makes the transition from the
city to the country.
• Line 20-21: ‘A door in the mind blows open, and there blows a frosty wind from fields of snow.’ The last two
lines are puzzling. The door blowing open is just another gateway opening in the mind to the memories that she
holds of her childhood. The second half these lines ‘and there blows a frosty wind from fields of snow.’ is there to
give a feel to the picture that she has been describing and it gives the reader a cold feeling. The frosty wind from
the fields of snow is relevant because in Canada the winter is very frosty with a lot of snow and wind. The “door”
could be the memory opening in a blast of nostalgia, but the association of winter and the “frosty wind” suggest
something less pleasant, like a realisation that the past, her place, is not so good after all. This is supported by the
content of the second stanza, where things may seem superficially attractive in a rustic way, but are “burned out”,
“old, in need of paint”, where the chickins cluck “aimlessly” and buildings are “battered”. So the suggestion is that
it is easy to remember formative places all to positively, but their legacy can be negative; a “frosty wind” in the
mind?

Structure
• The Poem is set out into three stanzas, the last being a rhyming couplet, with the words ‘blow’ and ‘snows’.
• If you look at the poem at the end of the first stanza, the last line finishes as a half line. The first line of the
second stanza then starts halfway down the line. The reason Elizabeth has done this is because she would like to
start the second stanza at the same place that she finished the first stanza; so she has the same line of thought,
but it is like she has jumped locations.
She finishes the first stanza with ‘subways crowded at rush hours’ and starts the second stanza with ‘Where I
come from’. This is to show a distinct change between the two stanza with the first being city life and the second
being country life. Structure
• If you look at the lines in the poem every single line with the exception of 5 out of the 21 lines has some sort of a
comma, full stop, colon or semi-colon splitting the lines into two sections. This technique used is a great way to
show the reader that the poem is meant to be read slow and appreciatively, taking in what is being said and
thinking about it more, and not meant to be quickly read and feeling bewildered afterwards when you are
confused about the poem to which you have just rushed.
• Apart from the previously mentioned no other apparent structure can be found, so it is more contemporary and
free versed poetry, done to provide uniqueness with the poem and also this allows Elizabeth to get her ideas and
points across as there is next to no boundaries which allows her to use any form of poetry language that she
wants to, getting the reader thinking more about the poem and its content rather than what words rhyme with
what and so on putting the reader into a state of rustic complacency.

This poem “Where I come from”, is very interesting. The poet, Elizabeth Brewster, uses a lot of imagery to make
us think in a very unique way. By using imagery, the poet is trying to make us aware that the place a person is
brought up from, would have an impact on what is going on through their minds. Take for example, in stanza one,
the poet uses words and phrases like,”atmosphere of smog”, “museum smell”, “smell of work”, “factories”,
“chromium-plated office”, “smell of subways crowded at rush hours”. What we see similar from these phrases are
the word “smell”. From here, we can see that the poet uses imagery to make us picture all these in our head.If we
think logically, and imagine ourselves in these different scene, what do you think we will smell from “work” and
“subways at rush hours”? We would definitely feel the heat, perspiration and also smell the smell of odour. Now,
what can we infer from here? We can infer that if a person is born in the cities, then that person would grow up
always thinking about how important the time is and also the importance of rushing. Like the saying goes, “time
and tide waits for no man”. However, in stanza two, the poet uses a different imagery. The poet uses a very calm
imagery. She uses words and phrases like,”acres of pine woods”, “blueberry patches”, “wooden farmhouses”,
“hens and chickens” and, “spring and water”. From here, we can see in our heads that the imagery portrayed is
very beautiful and peaceful. Again, if we think in a logical way and imagine ourselves in this place, we would
definitely feel vey calm and solace. We or rather I, can also feel that in this country side, world, time does not
exist. Overall, the poet uses imagery to make us think about why she herself say that,”people are made of places”.

14 William Wordsworth, Sonnet: Composed Upon Westminster Bridge

Upon Westminster Bridge is a sonnet praising the beauty of London and comparing it favourably to the wonders
of nature.

a...Earth has not anything to show more fair:

b...Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
b...A sight so touching in its majesty:
a...This City now doth like a garment wear
a...The beauty of the morning: silent, bare,
b...Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
b...Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
a...All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.......8

c...Never did sun more beautifully steep

d...In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
c...Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
d...The river glideth at his own sweet will:
c...Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
d...And all that mighty heart is lying still!...............14

Subject
- London dawn
- The poem is about the experience of crossing Westminster Bridge early in the morning and seeing the calmness
and beauty of the city of London. The poem describes the city in a very positive way, communicating its power
and 'splendour'.
- Wordsworth suggests that the view of the city is a rival for anything naturally occurring: 'Earth has not anything
to show more fair' is the opening line.
- The use of the word 'smokeless' in line 8 gives the reader a clue about why this scene is so powerful.
- Under normal circumstances, the smoke from homes and factories would have obscured the view of the city; it is
as if the speaker is experiencing the true beauty of the city for the first time.
Structure
- The poem is a sonnet, a format most commonly associated with love poetry, which reflects Wordsworth's
feelings for his subject matter.
- Sonnets tend to have 14 lines and a regular rhyme scheme, and this poem follows that pattern, although not
strictly. Romantic poets rejected the confines of pre-determined structure.
- Wordsworth delays revealing the subject of the poem until the fourth line; he creates anticipation in the reader
using this technique.

Setting
.......The setting is London as seen from Westminster Bridge, which connects the south bank of the Thames River
with Westminster on the north bank. Westminster, called an inner borough, is now part of London.

Inspiration

.......Wordsworth's inspiration for the poem was the view he beheld from Westminster Bridge on the morning of
July 31, 1802, when most of the residents were still in bed and the factories had not yet stoked their fires and
polluted the air with smoke. He and his sister, Dorothy, were crossing the bridge in a coach taking them to a boat
for a trip across the English Channel to France. In her diary, Dorothy wrote:

... we left London on Saturday morning at ½ past 5 or 6, the 31st July (I have forgot which) we mounted the
Dover Coach at Charing Cross. It was a beautiful morning. The City, St pauls, with the River & a multitude of
little Boats, made a most beautiful sight as we crossed Westminster Bridge. The houses were not overhung by
their cloud of smoke & they were spread out endlessly, yet the sun shone so brightly with such a pure light
that there was even something like the purity of one of nature's own grand Spectacles ”

—Dorothy Wordsworth, The Grasmere Journal, Saturday 31st July 1802 [1]

Theme: Seeing the City in a New Light

.......London during the workday was rude and dirty. A walk across a bridge or through streets and alleyways
confronted the pedestrian with smoke, dust, grimy urchins, clacking carts, ringing hammers, barking dogs, jostling
shoppers, smelly fish, rotting fruit. But at dawn on a cloudless morning, when London was still asleep and the fires
of factories had yet to be stoked, the city joined with nature to present the early riser a tableau of glistening
waters, majestic towers, unpeopled boats on the River Thames--bobbing and swaying--and the glory of empty,
silent streets. The message here is that even an ugly, quacking duckling can become a lovely, soundless swan.

"Composed Upon Westminster Bridge" is a lyric poem in the form of a sonnet.

In English, there are two types of sonnets, the Petrarchan and the Shakespearean, both with fourteen lines.
Wordsworth's poem is a Petrarchan sonnet, developed by the Italian poet Petrarch (1304-1374), a Roman Catholic
priest.
A Petrarchan sonnet consists of an eight-line stanza (octave) and a six-line stanza (sestet).
The first stanza presents a theme or problem, and the second stanza develops the theme or suggests asolution to
the problem.

Rhyme Scheme and Meter

.......The rhyme scheme of "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge" and other Petrarchan sonnets is as follows: (1)
first stanza (octave): abba, abba; (2) second stanza (sestet): cd, cd, cd

.......The meter of the poem is iambic pentameter, with ten syllables (five iambic feet) per line. (An iambic foot
consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.) The first two lines of the poem demonstrate the
metric pattern:

.......1...... . ..2......... ....3................4..................5

Earth HAS..|..not AN..|..y THING..|..to SHOW..|..more FAIR:
........1....... . ..2......... ....3.................4.................5
Dull WOULD..|..he BE..|..of SOUL |who COULD..|..pass BY
central theme: The first eight lines present a view of the city as it wears the sunlit morning like a garment and its
edifices glitter beneath the sky. The last six lines then boldly declare that this man-made "formation" is just as
beautiful in the sunlight as any natural formation, such as a valley or hill. Moreover, it is just as calming to the
observer, for even the houses seem to sleep, like the people in them.

Imagery

.......The most striking figure of speech in the poem is personification. It dresses the city in a garment and gives it a
heart, makes the sun "in his first splendour" a benefactor, and bestows on the river a will of its own.
.......Examples of other figures of speech in the poem are as follows:

Line 2, alliteration: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

Line 3, alliteration: A sight so touching in its majesty
Lines 4, 5 simile: This City now doth like a garment wear / The beauty of the morning: silent bare (comparison of
beauty to a garment)
Line 13: metaphor: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; (comparison of houses to a creature that sleeps)

Composed Upon Westminister Bridge is a poetry composed by William Wordsworth, a main character whom the
story of the poetry is narrated. In this narratie-styled poetry, Wordsworth is standing on the Westminister Bridge
early in the morning and is describing the beauty of London, through his emotions regarding nature. Wordsworth
is admiring the calmness and peacefulness of the morning.
In, Composed Upon Westminister Bridge, the city of London is portrayed as "a garment wear in the very early
morning setting." This detail points out the resting calmness of the city during that time. Also, the city of
London looks very calm since everything is at rest. It seems as though the whole city is asleep. "The beauty of
the morning; silent, bare. Ships, towers, domes, theaters, and temples lie open unto fields, and to the sky." (5-
7) The river flows quietly as well. "The river glideth at his own sweet will." Lastly, the calmness and quiet make
sun rays shine deep into every corner of the valley. "Never did sun more beautifully sleep in his first splendor
valley, rock, or hill;" (10) Wordsworth is feeling strong emotions toward nature of this Quiet. He is quoted as
saying, "Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep!" (11) The poetry creates the imagery of a peaceful city with a
beautifully glittering sun and a quietly flowing river in the early morning.
The calm tone of the poem appreciates the beauty of nature and is the main theme of this work. In Composed
Upon Westminister Bridge, Wordsworth shows his sensibility and passion toward nature which makes a
metropolitian city like London appear exceptionally beautiful.

Question:

"Write an essay in which you explore the way the sonnet represents the city to the reader."

William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 in the United Kingdom and was a major English Romantic poet. The
poem ‘composed upon Westminster Bridge’ was written in 1802 when wordsworth was on a trip to France with
his sister Dorothy and it is a poem about the beauty of London. This poem is describes the early morning scenes of
London when the whole town is sleeping.

Composed upon Westminster Bridge is a poem which describes the early morning scene of London. It describes
the majestic sight he sees as he passes the city, so majestic that only a person with a dull soul can walk past it
without admiring it. The city is very still and calm and the river is also flowing at its own pace. Ships and towers
just lie there silently. It is so calm that even the houses seem to be asleep.

This poem is a sonnet consisting of 14 lines. It is written in iambic pentameter with 10 syllables per line. The
rhyme scheme of the poem is abcaabbadedede. The main theme of the poem is the admiration of nature.
The poem begins with the line ‘Earth has not anything to show more fair’. This line gives us a feeling of the
perfection of that moment and also sets the mood for the poem. He says that there is nothing in the world that
can match the beauty of the scene he is viewing. Next he says ‘Dull would he be of soul who could pass by a sight
so touching in its majesty’. Here he says that the scene is so beautiful that only a person with a dull soul would not
appreciate this.

‘This City now doth, like a garment, wear’. The city of London is shown as wearing the morning as a garment. Here
he uses personification to show that just like garments can make a person more beautiful, this scene is making
London look more beautiful. It also signifies that London is bare at the moment, wearing only garments, without
the smoke and pollution from the factory and the noises of people.’ All bright and glittering in the smokeless air’.

’ Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky’. Here the buildings used
represent all the proportions of the human world – industries, government, entertainment and religion. Here he is
trying to say that all these manmade things which tend to cause harm to nature lie there peacefully in harmony
with the fields and the sky.

‘Never did sun more beautifully steep in his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill’. Here Wordsworth is comparing
the sunrise of this city to those of the valleys and hills. He says that he has never experienced sunshine more
beautiful than this one, not even on mountains and valleys. This is a rather ironic statement considering the love
and respect Wordsworth had for nature and all those things seemed pale in front of London’s skyline.

In the next line ‘the river glideth at his own sweet will’’. Here he uses personification to show that it is so early in
the morning that even the river glided at sweet pace. This creates a sleepy atmosphere and it personifies the
beauty created by that.

The final couplet describes the sleepy atmosphere of early mornings in London. It hammers the idea that the
beauty of thee London skyline is because of the fact that it is sleeping. ‘Dear God! The very houses seem asleep’.
Here he uses personification to describe that the city is so silent that even the house look asleep. ‘And all that
mighty heart is lying still!’ in the last line the writer uses a metaphor to show that the heart of the city which is its
industries is lying still and it is because of this fact that the beauty of the city can be seen and felt.

Talk about the contrast in the poem,how it depicts the belief of the writer,what effect s of industrialization is
shown how it is counter balanced by noting the beauty in the morning.

Additional notes

The Planners (comparison with The City Planners)

The Planners Boey Kim Cheng
Biographical details

 Boey Kim Cheng was born in Singapore in 1965. He received his Bachelor of Arts and Masters of Arts degrees
in English Literature from the National University of Singapore.
 Worked for some time in America as a probation officer
 Disillusioned with the state of literary and cultural politics in Singapore, Boey left for Sydney with his wife in
1996.
 in Australia, Boey completed his Ph.D. studies with the University of Macquarie. Boey is currently an Australian
citizen and teaches creative writing at the University of Newcastle. Literary History
In 1987, Boey won first prize at the National University of Singapore Poetry Competition while studying as an
undergraduate.Aged 24, he published his first collection of poetry(Somewhere- bound). it went on to win the
National Book Development Councils (NBDCS) Book Award for Poetry in 1992.His second volume of
poems Another Place received the commendation award at the NBDCS Book Awards.In 1995, Days Of No
Name, which was inspired by the people whom he met in the United States, was awarded a merit at the
Singapore Literature Prize.In recognition of his artistic talent and contributions, Boey received the National Arts
Council’s Young Artist Award in 1996.Boey produced his fourth volume of poetry in 2006. After the Fire deals
primarily with the passing of his father in 2000.Boey’s works have also appeared in many poetry anthologies

The Planners Boey Kim Cheng

Themes
 The disillusionment of the artist and the intellectual for the supposedly soulless path of technological progress
and industrialization.
 the discomfort of the artist with mundane, everyday life and with science-driven, apparently heartless
modernist progress
 Different interpretations of progress. Some treasure scientific progress and others culture growth
 The plans become the facade of culture, their form of escapism
 History cycles, what is the planners dream today, will be removed by the next generation coming along.
Analysis-Stanza One
 Characterises planning as solving a mathematical problem. “permutations” can be seen to offer many options
or seen as confined compared to infinite arrangements in nature. “gridded” describes the layout as well of
implying that creativity is confined, boxed in.
 Planning is seen as a way of shutting out nature attempting to remove the uncertainty it brings. “the sea
draws back and the skies surrender.” can be viewed with a touch of irony implying that nature is afraid of
human expansion, giving it an attribute nature can not/does not possess.
 Describes what the planners do. Giving the image of everything in prefect order “meet at desired points”
 The author excludes himself, from the planners through repeating “they” (twice) although every person plays
their role in the collective city. This also views them objectively making them appear harsh, thinking and
organised, but without love or compassion.
 Alliteration: “skies surrender
Analysis-Stanza Two
 Imagery of dentistry, an exact science. “dental dexterity”, “gaps are plugged with gleaming gold”, “wears
perfect rows of shining teeth”
 The dentist imagery moves onto “anaesthesia” and the numbing of pain associated with dentistry
 “drilling” can provide a link between the metaphor and the actual actions of the planners.
 Moves away from describing the planners goals, and more towards how they are viewed.
 Alliteration: “dental dexterity” “gleaming gold”
 “They have it all so it will not hurt, so history is new again. “ the implication is that history hurts people and
that the scars of the past remain, and humans are constantly trying to heal the pains of the past.
Analysis-Stanza Three
 “blueprint” linking to construction plans.
 Blood imagery: “bleed” “single drop” “stain” negative diction, creates a stark ending to the poem.
 “would not bleed poetry” gives the idea that art is not part of the modern expansionist city building, ironic as
part of a poem
 Gives the idea that The reality lapses behind the dreams of the planners. Seldom coming into fruition the
exact pristine way they envisage.
Other points
 Negatives used throughout poem: “not a single…” “the piling will not stop” “it will not hurt” “they build and
will not stop”. Gives the idea that the poet wants the opposite to take place
 The poet appears Sceptical about the benefits of the planners progress, and fears for the wider implications of
their actions. Seeing them as damaging the past and reducing the quality of the future.
Comparison: ‘city planners’ by Magaret Atwood
 Both opening stanzas revolve a round precision and accuracy “pedantic rows… Rational… Straight” and
“alignment… Desired points”
 Both depict the city and the planning of it as unfeeling. “neatly sidestep hysteria…same slant of avoidance…
two fixed stare of the wide windows…” and “drilling through the fossils of last century”
 What Atwood describes as “the sanities” can be seen as the ways to remove the pain.
 Atwood envisions the collapse of the city where as Cheng discusses the destruction of the remains of past
cities.
 Both deal with the suppression of nature, one depicts the city controlling natures existence and the others
views the boundaries of nature pulling back. “the planted sanitary trees… Discouraged grass” and “the seas
draw back… Skies surrender”

Compare A Birthday and Pied Beauty

A Birthday and Pied Beauty share many similarities. They are both descriptive poems. Both poems talk
about positive things and have a calm but cheerful tone. A birthday talks about the way in which the
author has fallen in love and how does this have an impact on her thoughts. Pied Beauty talks mainly
about praising God for nature.
They both share the same expression of gratitude to someone or something which in the case of Pied
Beauty is to God and in the case of A Birthday is to a feeling, an emotion which has enlighten the life of the
author. For example, in A birthday “My heart is like a singing bird// whose nest is in a watered shoot”. In
this particular line, Christina Rossetti expresses her love and she uses imagery to describe her rebirth as
watered shoot is a plant which in this case represents growth. On the other hand, in Pied Beauty the
author expresses his thanks and praises to God; “glory to be God for dappled things”, as you can see,
Gerard Manley Hopkins is expressing his gratitude towards God for all of his creations on Earth. As you can
see, both poems are joyous as they talk in a calm and happy mood.
Both poems talk about a golden time that they are both experiencing. A Birthday tells us that she feels as
in the past “my heart is like a rainbow shell// that paddles in a halcyon sea”. This intends to show a
positive image (rainbow) and the poet means how she felt the first time she fell in love with someone. This
is understood by using the word halcyon which means looking back and saying those were the good old
days. In Pied Beauty, the author is living his golden times every day; “for skies of couple colour…//trout
that swim…//landscape plotted and pieced…” In these 3 lines, he highlights & describes things which turn
him in a nice and happy mood daily because they are all things that he is able to see and experience.
Neither of the poems talks in a negative way or about negative things. They are both 100% optimistic in
the way they share their view of life, in A Birthday, the poet decorates the poem with love and positive
images in order to transmit her feelings; “Raise me a dais of silk and down”. And in Pied Beauty, the author
expresses us his delight at the variety of nature in the world. Both authors use positive images in order to
transmit a happy and chill mood on their poems.
In conclusion, both poems share along their optimism, their feel of happiness and their gratitude to
someone or something throughout the poems.
Compare and contrast woodspurge and a birthday

This poem by Elizabeth Rossetti has different themes and use of language that can be compared with a
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti called ‘The Woodspurge’. In the following paragraphs we will draw a
comparison of the similarities and differences that each of these poems has.

The themes in ‘A birthday’ and in ‘The Woodspurge’ are very similar. For example, The Woodspurge talks
about the theme of birth in nature when he says;
“The woodspurge flowered, three cups in one”
A woodspurge is a flower that, when flowering, gives three small flowers. This connects to the idea of birth
and origin because a plant flowering gives the image of seeing the sun for the first time or taking a first
breath. This theme connects to ‘A birthday’ because this poem also touches with the theme of birth;
“Whose nest is in a watered shoot”
This connects to the theme of birth because a watered shoot is a new branch that grows in a tree. We can
say that these two poems share the same theme of giving an image of growing in nature, specifically in
plants and trees, but really mean to connect it to the human birth.

Language in these two poems is a difference. This is because ‘The woodspurge’ is written in a tone of grief,
while ‘A birthday’ is written in a tone of happiness and joyfulness. An example of this is ‘The Woodspurge’;
“Shaken out the dead from tree and hill.”
Here the author uses the image of death to give a sense of grief and isolation. ‘A birthday’ is different
because it uses celebration and joyful language. For example;
“My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;”
Here the author uses two pieces of vocabulary that denote joy and celebration. The first one is “a rainbow
shell”. This is intended to associate rainbows with happiness. The second vocabulary the author uses is
“halcyon sea”. ‘Halcyon’ means old and joyful. This is a direct relationship with the intended image
because the definition of ‘halcyon’ matches directly to the tone of the poem. The difference between this
two poems is the vocabulary used to give the tone, ‘A birthday’ has a tone of happiness because of its
vocabulary. In the other hand, ‘The woodpurge’ has a tone of sadness because of its vocabulary.
In conclusion, we have seen that these two poems are similar in terms of the theme of creation in nature
trying to project an image of human birth. However, these two poems also share a difference; that their
vocabularies express different tones in the poem. ‘A birthday’ has a more joyful tone, while ‘The
woodspurge’ has a tone of grief.

NOTE: USE THESE NOTES TO GET IDEAS.DO NOT COPY PASTE.REMEMBER, ORIGINALITY IS THE KEY WORD.

ALL THE BEST

Compiled by: Mrs. Hina Desai