Cool Store Atmosphere

In a series of verse paragraphs, Dawe focuses on the 1950’s society with an emphasis on the consumerism, materialism and lack of individualism. He seeks to convince an important issue in the Australian Society-Our consumer driven culture; a culture that defines us through what we buy and consume. The focus of Dawe’s criticism of the consumerism is the family that bought home the baby from the hospital. Dawe portrays it in a satirical way; the family life and the individual lives of the family members who have been dehumanized by such a mercantile society. He instills strong commands when describing his family commodities: “One economy-size Mum, One Anthony Squires-Coolstream-Summerweight Dad along with two other kids straight off the junior department rack.” The warmth of the mum, dad and kids, contrast with the advertising language which describes them. It is as if his mum is the size of a washing machine, the father is summed up by the suit he wears, and the baby siblings have been bought like goodies in an apartment place. Dawe is not saying that this is actually true; he is using metaphors and exaggeration.

The poem “We Real Cool” is a very powerful poem, although expressed with very few words. To me, this poem describes the bottom line of the well known “ghetto life”. It describes the desperate and what they need, other than the usual what they want, money. Without actually telling us all about the seven young men, it does tell us about them. The poem tells of the men’s fears, their ambitions, and who they think they are, versus who they really are.

The poem begins with an observation. The second line juxtaposes beautiful nights with beer and lemonade. The mention of beer and lemonade in the same line is interesting in that beer is a beverage of adulthood, while lemonade is a beverage of childhood. At seventeen one is presumably at that awkward age between adolescence and adulthood, between lemonade and beer. At seventeen all nights are beautiful, and exciting, filled with adventures yet to unfold, nonetheless the author offers that "loud blinding cafes are the last thing you need." This could be seen as a caution to the youth not to venture too far into the adult world too soon. Nonetheless the protagonist (you) continues to walk along the tree lined promenade.

As the speaker casually calls their parents, a setting of calm expectations is established. While greeting the speaker, the mother’s decision to “run out and get” (1) the father highlights the lack of urgency that is present. The mother is calm and fetches the father in an expected and relaxed fashion, further establishing the calm expectations of the ongoing call. The mother additionally states that “the weather here’s so good” (2). Heaney’s use of the word “good” reflects the setting of the mother and father’s home; the atmosphere of where they live is pleasant and unperturbed. The “weather” serves as a projection of the father’s own state, implying that the father is in good health and that death is not yet looming over him. The last spoken words in the poem reveal that the father was conducting “a bit of weeding” (3). The word “weeding” highlights the capability of the

In Julia Alvarez’s poem “On Not Shoplifting Louise Bogan’s The Blue Estuaries”, the poet uses poetic devices to convey the speaker’s discovery of a poem that catches her attention so much that she feels a rush of excitement that wants to hold on to as long as she can. She discovers about herself how captivated she can be from a poem and how she would even shoplift to keep the rush. The exciting tone is revealed through the entrancement of the girl.The smooth, calming imagery shows how impacted she was by the poem and how uncertain she was about her situation. The selection of detail shows how the book was unique and how she eventually saw who she was becoming.

For generations, poets have used their literary vehicle to express themes and produce content that remains relevant to a modern reader.”Enter Without So Much As Knocking” by Australian poet Bruce Dawe is a prime example of this, as Dawe uses the generic conventions of the genre to present his thoughts and comment on topics that in a way that remains relevant for future generations of readers. One reason the poem is still relevant and popular today is the attention it brings to capitalism and the complete materialistic nature of the pictured society, which forces readers to reflect on their own context and society. By having strict rules that govern Dawe’s pictured society, it reduces the value of life, and through his alliteration at the start

Throughout the poem the speaker mentions things that relate to consumerism in America. An example in the poem that speaks about consumerism comes from lines 1-4

The poem “Enter without so much as knocking” begins with the innocence of a baby being exposed to the harsh materialistic world seconds after birth. The capitalization of the words ‘HOSPITAL SILENCE’ presents the idea of sings which are controlling the way we live. This is reinforced further into the poem when the baby is considered an adult and is truly introduced to the consumerism of the society.

In the poem ‘Enter Without So Much as Knocking’, Bruce Dawe uses the language of television to display the effect technology and advertisements had on daily Australian life in the 1950’s. In the first stanza, Dawe wrote “…first thing he heard was Bobby Dazzler on Channel 7: Hello, hello, hello all you lucky people…” The stanza is focused on a ten-day-old baby who has been taken home and the first thing he hears is the catch phrase of a TV personality. This tells us that in Dawe’s world, children are exposed to the news and the power of ads as young as possible, to force them into a life of technology and big companies. In stanza three, the language becomes more demanding and jarring. Dawe uses capitalization, repetition and short sentences to create a list of rules society is being forced to follow. He uses road rules such as “walk. Don’t walk. Turn left. No parking,” and the lack of emotion in the words highlights how he believes this is not the way to live. The fifth stanza is written as the adult. It’s a long sentence filled with the jargon of advertising and superficial connections to family and friends, and through this language use Dawe shows us exactly what he’s afraid of.

These are expressed through the author's experience in the bread shop, where she describes that the homeless man "wears a stained blanket pulled up to his chin, and a woolen hood pulled down to his gray, bushy eyebrows. As he stands, the scent of stale cigarettes and urine fills the small, overheated room." The imagery used gives the audience the impression they've experienced the situation themselves, placing them in that situation. It emphasizes the homeless peoples' position in society and the circumstances they

In both of William Blake’s poems, “The Little Black Boy” and “The Chimney Sweeper,” an innocent-eye point of view portrays the stresses of society in an alternative way to an adult’s understanding. The innocent perspective redirects focus onto what society has become and how lacking each narrator is in the eyes of the predominant white culture. Each naïve speaker also creates an alternate scenario that presents a vision of what their skewed version of life should be like, showing how much their unfortunate youth alters their reality. From the viewpoint of children, Blake’s poems highlight the unhealthy thoughts or conditions in their lives and how unfortunate they were to be the wrong race or class level. These narrators were cheap laborers and were in no control of how society degraded them. Such usage of a child’s perspective offers important insight into the lives of these poor children and raises awareness for the horrible conditions children faced in the London labor force prior to any labor laws. The children of the time had no voice or platform on which to express their opinions on their conditions. Blake targets society’s lack of mindfulness towards the children using the innocent-eye point of view and illusions of what they dream for in life.

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.

Larkin presents the idea that instead of living in the moment we constantly look forward for something new, this is first presented in the title “Next, please.” The title has a dismissive and habitual tone, and sounds like a doctor or shop keeper asking for the

Walcott, Derek, The Master of the Ordinary: Philip Larkin, What The Twilight Says, (London: Faber and Faber Ltd, 1998).