Analysis Of George Bradley's Poem 'The Sound Of The Sun'

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.

Updike continues his portrayal of the vast splendor of nature through metaphors, similes, and diction pertaining to a large flock of starlings that flew and over and lit on the gold course where the two men in the poem are playing. The approaching flock of birds seem like a “cloud of dots” (Line 16) on the horizon to observers. The author compares The image of the steadily approaching flock of starlings to iron filings (the birds) stuck to a magnet through a piece of paper (the horizon). The men stand in awe of the black, writhing, approaching mass, much like children do when the magnet picks up the filings through the paper. By comparing the approaching birds to the magnet and iron filing scenario in a simile, Updike subtly likens the men reaction to a small child’s reaction when he/she sees the “magic” of the magnet and the iron filings for the first time. The simile purpose is to show how nature can make grown men feel like small, free little kids when experiencing nature at its best. As the observers continue to watch the looming flock of birds, the flock became one huge pulsating mass of birds that seemed as “much as one thing as a rock.” (Line 22) Updike once again eloquently portrays nature as absolutely stunning to show how nature affects man. The birds descended in a huge “evenly tinted” (Line

Imagery is used consistently right through the poem to evoke sensory experiences and to endorse the theme. For instance: ‘A stark white ring-barked forest’-‘the sapphire misted mountains’-‘the hot gold lush of noon’ and many more. All of these appeal to the readers senses and places brilliant visual image(s) in our minds by illuminating the various features of the country, from the perspective of the poems persona. This is attained using; adjectives, ‘the sapphire-misted mountains¬¬¬’, which gives us a picture of mountains with a bluish haze embracing it, this image would thus give an impression of a composed environment and evoke a sense of tranquillity. Additionally by using ‘sapphire’ to illustrate the mist surrounding the mountains we get a sense of Australia’s uniqueness as sapphire is a rare gem. Imagery is also displayed through a metaphor used to appeal to the sense of hearing. For example: ‘the drumming of an army, the steady soaking rain’. Here Mackellar depicts the rain as an army and allows us not only to visualize but get a sense of the sound of the rain, which is presented through the adjective ‘drumming’. This line also presents to us the intensity of the rain again through the adjectives ‘drumming, steady and soaking’.

This contrast serves to communicate the scattered nature of our consciousness with the unity, elegance and fluidity of our subconscious. Furthermore, these drawn out sounds serve to also further the imagery of the tide’s “uninterrupted sweep” which is particularly effective in conveying the image of the wave rushing to envelope the shore, the word “uninterrupted” conveying this sense that the wave of inspiration is all smooth and relentless. This imagery is furthered by the 3 line-long segment, uninterrupted by punctuation. Yet, the central point made in these four lines is when the speaker states that “(he) heard” the waves. The description of the sea gives you a mental image, but Longfellow stresses upon the fact that the speaker only hears the tide, as this can be seen reflected in the title of the poem “The Sound of the Sea”. Hearing is an auditory action that allows one to be aware of the presence of the object through the sound, but not visually or physically grasp it. This suggests that inspiration is similar, in the sense that one can be aware of it but cannot consciously grasp, control or dominate it.

To elaborate, the reader can not truly hear what is taking place in the poem, but does get a sense of being able to hear what they are reading. For instance when the speaker says “While his gills were breathing in” (22), the reader can almost hear the fish breathing. The speaker again stimulates the auditory senses when she says “and a fine black thread, / still crimped from the strain and snap” (58-59). Again the reader can virtually hear the sound of the line snapping. The next aspect of imagery that needs to be examined is the sensory imagery. An excellent example of sensory imagery is found when reading the lines “It was more like the tipping, / of an object toward light” (43-44). These lines can give an almost unbalanced feeling to the reader as they conceptualize these words. Imagery is not the only important element used in this poem. As stated earlier, irony is an important component involved in “The Fish”.

Another technique used is Onomatopoeia it means the use of words that imitates sound. An example of this in the poem is shown by the use of the following word – zipping. “They’re zipping them up in green plastic bags” by using the word zipping in this sentence, helps the readers to associate with the sound of which a zip makes.

As the speaker sits in an auditorium, they observe the lecturer’s many notes, “When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, / When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,” (lines 2-3). This line provides strong visual imagery of complex investigations in astronomy, and a reader can easily imagine a full lecture room with endless notes and charts which aids in providing the mind-numbing mood of the experience. Moreover, the repetitions of what are essentially synonyms in this context make these lines sound like the rambles of the astronomer, contributing to the tone. As the speaker tires of the lecture, he leaves the room and “In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, / Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars” (lines 8-9). Here Whitman again employs imagery to make the night seem appealing and

The author uses imagery in the poem to enable the reader to see what the speaker sees. For example, in lines 4-11 the speaker describes to us the

By adding in onomatopoeias, the reader is able to hear the sound of the water as it rushes and crashes. Therefore, the poetic devices that Imtiaz uses have a tremendous purpose throughout the poem.

Readers are aware of this ambiguity. Here the heaviest flashback thoughts and the short-lasting issue set up a continuing contrast throughout the poem, which enchants its effect.

With the use of sensory imagery, Ray Bradbury paints a picture in our minds of how the planet Venus in his story looks and sounds like. He describes this planet where it “…had been raining for seven years…” as the sound and look of “…tatting drum, the endless shaking down of clear bead necklaces upon the rood, the walk, the gardens, the forest…” This tells us that the

symbolic richness, but at the same time the poem supplies the reader with a wide

“That Evening Sun” by William Faulkner is a good example of a great emotional turmoil transferred directly to the readers through the words of a narrator who does not seem to grasp the severity of the turmoil. It is a story of an African American laundress who lives in the fear of her common-law husband Jesus who suspects her of carrying a white man's child in her womb and seems hell bent on killing her.

The sound of poetry is the most important element than anything else involved with poetry. The sounds of poetry are basically a foundation of desire. It is how the syllables are arranged in a pleasant-sounding pattern to satisfy and please desires even if they have a small meaning or no meaning to them. A poem that is filled with sound but little meaning can be “The Word Plum” by Helen Chasin. It is a poem that uses the sound devices of alliteration and onomatopoeia to bring the plum to life. Using alliteration and onomatopoeia it gives the plum a sound, a savory sound, it’s almost like you can taste and touch the plum in the palm of your hand and the sounds are just rolling off the tongue with every “delicious” bite of “luxury”. In the first line there is just a brief description of how delicious the plum is, but wait there is more. Then Chasin uses alliteration in (line 2) with the two words “pout and push” because they begin with p’s, they’re verbs, four letters, and are not capitalized. Chasin also uses onomatopoeia with the second line, same words “pout and push” to give a new sound of delicious from the first line, and to explain why the plum is so delightful. Once more, she uses alliteration in the third line using “self-love and savoring”; creating that delightful sound of juices from the plum.

“Storm Warnings,” true to its literal subject matter, possesses flowy sweeping syntax created by the strategic use of commas and phrasing to draw parallels between the physical oncoming winds and the gales of life. The author crafts a long run-on sentence that spans the first stanza and carries on into the latter portion of the second to mirror the continuous flowing of windy weather and the forward motion of life. Once the speaker notices the brewing storm, they “walk from window to closed window, watching boughs strain against the sky.” In this portion of the affromented run-on sentence, alliteration, rhythm, and the repetition of words all contribute to the impression of movement. The various “w” sounds at the beginnings of words and the repetition of the word “window” create a sensation of continuously flowing forward, especially when read aloud; the comma adds a small swirling pause to the rhythm, which is then soon after resumed with the word “watching.” Just as the poem rhythmically moves forward with its long phrases connected with frequent commas, so must life carry on with each additional experience, whether it be misfortunes or joys. The elongated syntax allows all these elements to work together within sentences to highlight the similarities between physical storms and emotional struggle and to stress the inevitability of predicaments in life.