Alzheimer's Poem 'She Was Waiting To Be Told'

The memories in the poem maintain a cohesiveness and continuity of experience through repeated motifs such as the violets and the ‘whistling’. Memories also give us a recovered sense of life, as shown through the final line of the poem ‘faint scent of violets drifts in air’. This example of sensory imagery also creates a rhythmic drifting sense linked closely to the “stone-curlews call from Kedron Brook”. It echoes images of the speaker’s mind drifting into reflection and aurally creates transience between the present and the past.

In Father and Child, as the persona moves on from childhood, her father becomes elderly and is entertained by simple things in nature, “birds, flowers, shivery-grass.” These symbols of nature remind the persona of the inconsistency of life and the certainty of death, “sunset exalts its known symbols of transience,” where sunset represents time. Both poems are indicative of the impermanence of life and that the persona has managed to mature and grow beyond the initial fearlessness of childhood moving onto a sophisticated understanding of death.

Remembering memories is preferred, rather than living in reality. In the poem, we witness a woman remembering her high school idol, and she decides in the end to not go and talk to him. It is evident that the woman in the poem prefers her memory rather than the view that reality is showing her, this is shown when the woman refuses to go and meet the “hero she had as a girl”, despite giving herself a realistic reason why she should go and greet him, “you think how easy it would be to walk right over and tap him on the shoulder[, and] say hello” but she doesn’t. She doesn’t go and greet him because her memory remembers him as someone amazing, and admirable, “taller than the boys in your own class[,] taller even than your brothers”; where height is a reflection of her admiration. But her hero is now “fat and balding”, and to go greet him now would warp her perspective of her hero, from someone to idolise, to someone pathetic. In the end, she chooses to just remember him just the way she wants to, rather than remembering him the way reality does, showing that memories are preferred over reality. The woman also chooses not to talk to him because of her personal desire to retain her views and opinions of not only how she sees her hero, but also how

The poem “To my Dear and Loving Husband” by Anne Bradstreet, is not just an exceedingly felt expression of a wife’s marital love and commitment to her husband, as it is about a puritan women who is supposed to be reserved but she makes it her obligation to enlighten her husband of her devotion. A thorough analysis of the poem’s paradox, hyperbole, imagery and repetition reveals how she conveys her message.

Forgetfulness can be seen in many different lights; it can be seen a bad thing, or a good thing. In the poem “Forgetfulness” by Hart Crane, the speaker utilizes similes and metaphors to convey ideas about forgetfulness in order to develop the theme; in the poem by Billy Collins with the same name, the speaker utilizes personification and irony to convey ideas about forgetfulness to develop the theme.

In the first lines of the poem Yeats describes this woman as “old and grey and full of sleep” (Yeats). The speaker of the poem addresses his beloved saying that when she is aged she should read a particular book which will remind her of her youth. She will remember the

Memory is presented as either a way of life or a community of change, as demonstrated in ‘Aspens’, ‘Old Man’, ‘Aldestrop’. He does this through the variety of techniques such as change in form, use of imagery and alternations in the tone of each poem to explore memory. As well as this, Thomas explicates the devastation of emptiness due to the consequence of war, which is portrayed through the use of soft consonantal sounds or the use

In “Alzheimer” Kelly cherry tells the story of a old man with Alzheimer. She is telling his story as he is coming home to what we expect to be his wife. This is a narrative poem in which we see this shell of a old man remembering bits and pieces from his house which seems to be the only thing that he remembers. The pieces are reveal piece by piece of the small things he remembers about his house. Even with all the things he remembers it won 't be enough to save this crazy old man. Cherry uses imagery, and diction to show a old man as he goes through the signs of Alzheimer, we see the terror he experiences as he comes home.

"Confusion, Anxiety, Anger and Pain, Despair" these are some of the words that Kaunie Hagensen uses to describe her condition in the poem Lost. (Hagensen 1999) These feelings are shared by many people today who suffer from, or have family members who suffer from Alzheimer's disease. The Encyclopedia of Alzheimer's Disease describes it as being, "a progressive degenerative disease characterized by the death of nerve cells in several areas of the brain. While the most obvious symptom is loss of memory, the disease also causes problems with emotional control, vision, and language." (Turkington 2003, 14) "Alzheimer's disease" has previously been used to describe dementia arising in middle age, but because of the neuropathological

The man remembers the house that he came home to as his own, but he has no working memory of his wife. He even remembers the car that he used to drive. He is sad because he remembers this part of himself but can never be the person he was again. In the next few lines she tells about her father recalling the days of his youth and how he used to love music, but he doesn’t love it anymore. “A man who loved music. There is no time for that now. No time for music” (line 19-20). This is not because he doesn’t want to love music anymore, but simply because he physically can’t. The only happiness in this man’s life currently are the memories that he can remember. This is where his nostalgia comes into play because he can remember happy memories from the past. I can only wonder if this man would rather have just been dead because it must be extremely frustrating to remember certain things and not others. Especially losing the ability to remember something you love like his music or his wife. This must also have a huge impact on his family. Alzheimer’s is a slow process but watching someone you love slowly forget every aspect of their life must be extremely

Based on the fact that his father left him was the purpose he wrote the poem to give himself the hope of what kind of father he could be and the opportunities that he could have with his children. The poem was writing

“But now I live here by myself/with hardly a damn thing on the shelf,/and pass my days with little cheer/since I have parted from my dear.” The husband deflects the pain by speaking in rhyme, ditching any figurative language to mask his troubles. The poem’s language is ordinary, blunt, and absent of any

Analyzing and interpreting poetry takes time and effort due to the variety of elements each poem may possess as well as understanding those elements chosen and used in the piece of work. In addition, one’s life experiences may influence how one perceives the poem. However, in the poem “Alzheimer’s” by Kelly Cherry, published in 1997 and written during a time of personal struggle for Cherry and her dad, a couple of poetic elements appear more prominent than any others. These are the tone and imagery. Cherry begins the poem with a feeling of insensitivity but by the end transforms the feeling in to one of pity or sadness. Through her careful choice of words and use of similes and metaphors Cherry establishes the tone and imagery throughout the poem in a realistic way regarding this disease and its tug on the emotions one feels when caring for someone with this illness.

In the short story, “The Rememberer”, by Annie Bender, the devolution of a man into simpler forms is put into place. The literary theory, Disability theory, can be examined throughout the story’s theme; the theme being the concept of the “rememberer” a person who has the position to “to hang onto and recall the memories…slowly being lost…” The connection between the story and the theory involves the character, Ben, devolving into less of a man, not being able to do things on his own and relying on his lover as a caretaker and a person to remember him after he is gone.

Naturally, life is a continuous cycle of experience and learning. Yet often times so much is buried in our lives that we fail to remember or recall what we have learned. Memories that range from miniscule facts to important emotions can often leave unknowingly from our mind. Billy Collin’s “Forgetfulness” shows how memories are delicate and fragile, and that the process of forgetting is one that is nonchalant. Billy Collins effectively blends subtle humor and irony with a dramatic tone shift to explain that ideas and facts that people think are important flee the mind, showing that nothing good can last. Although he refers to memories in a lighthearted, thoughtful manner, the poem gradually shifts (just