Analysis of the poem 'My Country' by Oscar Krahnvohl

The line ‘driven like stakes into the earth’ is a simile and can be interpreted in two different ways. It can be seen as the fact that man is trying to build a city of impermanence, and the other is the literal meaning of mans crucification of the earth with buildings. Robert Gray also uses contrasting juxtaposition of imagery extensively in the poem. ‘On a highway over the marshland...cars like skulls, that is rolling in its sand dunes.’ This not only emphasises humankind’s assault on nature and the urbanisation that is contaminating natural spaces, but also compares the two landscapes as existing together. It once again forces the responder to visualise the situation, one of which they may be able to relate too and question life’s morals. The poem shows the destructive nature of mans actions, which is an issue in society that is prevalent.

In Cry, the Beloved Country, the city of Johannesburg enables Gertrude’s desires to control her life, yet the desires that govern her are shamefully careless. Before Gertrude left Ndosheni, she had been surrounded by villagers who essentially knew many or all of their community’s people, including her. With the fear that several people would know of or observe her actions, Gertrude was encouraged to act upon the ethical desires widely accepted by her people. On the other hand, Johannesburg has little to no sense of community—being a heavily populated city and the majority of its inhabitants strangers to one another—which allows Gertrude to pursue the amoral desires within her, and for them to occur unnoticed by relatives. When Stephen Kumalo, her brother, finally receives word of Gertrude’s illness, he leaves for Johannesburg and finds her in a shabby, dirty house, crammed between similar buildings. Anxiously standing in front of his sister’s door, awaiting what would be their first encounter after several months, Kumalo overhears a “laughter in the house, the kind of laughter of which one is afraid… perhaps because it is in truth bad laughter,” (Paton 59 emphasis added). The bad laughter he hears is a product of Gertrude’s careless desires; her undisciplined lust for men. The context in which this laughter comes from is what makes it bad, especially in Kumalo’s mind, for he is not just her family, but a priest as well. Without a close-knit community to direct

There is also figurative language used in phrases such as “Having come from the clouds” and “tilting road”. This adds to the effect of imagery and emphasis on the journey to the sawmill town. It also helps to make the stanza more interesting to the reader.

When songwriters begin to pen the lyrics of a song, I believe their ultimate goal is to transcend time in hopes of reaching listeners for generations to come. J.R. Cash, professionally known as Johnny Cash, wrote a song that did just that. “Ragged Old Flag” is a patriotic song that speaks to every generation. Written in 1974, “Ragged Old Flag” was meant to tell the story of our country. Johnny Cash recorded “Ragged Old Flag” live at the House of Cash. Cash wanted the song to be recorded live because it was raw, untouched, and unapologetically real. The basis of this analysis is to show how patriotism spans generations, but also why a song such as, “Ragged Old Flag” is an important part of patriotism in the United States of America.

Native Guard is a poem that is built on a lot of passion and precision that makes this entire book of poetry stand out. From the beginning with the elusive imagery and foreshadowing of her childhood and her mother’s life we are easily engulfed in the lifestyle of being born in the south. The imagery continues on in the new memory of the pinnacle time of slavery and the Civil War, which shows the true nature of the south through repetition and metaphoric sentences of many gruesome and remorseful scenes.

Beauty is a subjective idea that focuses on the characteristics preferable to a single species that gives an advantage over another and at the cost of another species survival. Humans have created astounding empires with beautiful cities and monuments because they were the most progressive species that are able to do so because of their capacity for violence. Some empires fear for their survival, so they must eliminate any threat whether it be humans or other animals. The poem, “Thanks” by Yusef Komunyakaa, it symbolizes how humans can become single minded only driven by their own personal desires at the sake of anyone else. Humans naturally commit ugly atrocities to progress their own beauty, or at least idea of, and they instinctively oppose nature because mankind is the dark side of nature.

Reflections Within is a non-traditional stanzaic poem made up of five stanzas containing thirty-four lines that do not form a specific metrical pattern. Rather it is supported by its thematic structure. Each of the five stanzas vary in the amount of lines that each contain. The first stanza is a sestet containing six lines. The same can be observed of the second stanza. The third stanza contains eight lines or an octave. Stanzas four and five are oddly in that their number of lines which are five and nine.

The appreciation of nature is illustrated through imagery ‘and now the country bursts open on the sea-across a calico beach unfurling’. The use of personification in the phrase ‘and the water sways’ is symbolic for life and nature, giving that water has human qualities. In contrast, ‘silver basin’ is a representation of a material creation and blends in with natural world. The poem is dominated by light and pure images of ‘sunlight rotating’ which emphasizes the emotional concept of this journey. The use of first person ‘I see from where I’m bent one of those bright crockery days that belong to so much I remember’ shapes the diverse range of imagery and mood within the poem. The poet appears to be emotional about his past considering his thoughts are stimulated by different landscapes through physical journey.

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’.

In the next stanza, the line "Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay", the poet is now using imagery with the waters, however it can also be a metaphorical representation of life due to

“Sunshine seemed like gold,” (line 4) and “Whole damn world’s turned cold,” (line 5). The poet

and that he believes them. The poem also translates into how living in the city is toilsome and that the city is unrelenting. On the other hand it shows how the city can be prosperous and happy with the city’s disadvantages. in the second half of the poem it’s telling how nomatter what is wrong with the city, the people are still proud of who they are.

The image that is firstly drawn in the first stanza is that of a blade of grass amid a field and the

The first stanza is addressed to ‘old men’ and how they should not simply slip away and die quietly, they should fight death until the end. Poetic techniques

Richard Blanco is a Cuban- American poet who was given the oppurunity to write an inaugaration poem for Barack Obama's second swearing-in. He wrote a poem titled "One Today" that praised the good and unique things about the United States and also the everyday people who's daily routines help to make America the proud country that it is.