Donald Hall Poetry Essay

Frost further points out that the stretch of woods being viewed is very rural. This is made possible by the reference to the location between the woods and frozen lake. In closing the final sentence of the second stanza Frost reiterates the fact that this occurs on “the darkest evening of the year” stating the darkness of the mood.

Whether you realise it or not, the act of representation is a constant and significant aspect of our lives. It defines and influences our perceptions of things in either a positive or negative way. One poem that I particularly admire from Harwood’s collection is ‘The violets’ , as it recognises the inevitable act of evolving without our childhood memories. The art of growing up and moving forward is only fully accomplished when we recognise and accept the experiences and explorations of our childhood. Harwood’s poetic style reflects her conservative, traditional and religious upbringing, as well as her interests in literature, philosophy and music. As one of Australia’s finest poets, and it is an honour to introduce Harwood’s latest poem anthology.

Robert Frost and William Shakespeare have been celebrated by many people because of their ability to express themselves through the written word. Here we are years after their deaths analyzing these fascinating poems about life and death. It’s clear they had similar thoughts about this subject at the time of these writings, even though their characters could not have been more opposite. For both poets, life is too

In the poem “XIV,” Derek Walcott utilizes the use of inhumane imagery that is being counterpointed with the use of happy imagery to show the view of an elderly woman with his experiences with her; the speaker recalls this information by describing his experiences with her with a sense of happiness, fear and appreciation.

Master establishes a foil in these two Spoon River Anthology poems as the reader observes the differences in the characters’ lives and outlooks. Uniquely, Masters creates characters who have died and now look back on their lives to give advice to the reader. For example, in “George Gray”, George is dead but knows he did not live life with a purpose. He

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.

Poetry, by its very nature, comes from a place within of deep emotion and meaning for the writer. Some poets, such as Sharon Olds, utilize a confessional style that connects their personal experiences to the reader as if confessing their inner thoughts and feelings directly in an almost testimonial fashion. In her poems “After Making Love in Winter” and “Still Life in Landscape,” Sharon Olds utilizes poetic elements of setting and imagery to support a theme to convey her inner self in a way that resonates with readers on a personal level.

Childhood is a time in which one’s personality begins to be revealed and shaped. Though everyday events in one’s childhood may seem insignificant, these mundane moments will be remembered long into adulthood. These ordinary moments can be seen in a glimpse of Theodore Roethke’s poems. Throughout Roethke’s childhood and adult life, he was exposed to difficult situations. These events significantly impacted his poetry later in his life, and he uses rhythm to express his poem’s themes of grief, nature, and mental illness, along with rhyme and alliteration.

It was after this portion of his life that he began to take up a set of ideals first said by T.S. Elliot that stated that one must read, understand, and imitate the history of poetry before one can add to that history, which Roethke began immediately on (“Theodore Roethke”). After he finished his journey through the history of poetry, he began to figure out his own

SUMMARY: In Kelly Cherry’s poem titled “Alzheimer’s” she describes a man in front of his house who had just returned from the hospital. Cherry writes about the theme of losing a loved one which is shown in the last sentence of the poem. Cherry lists the items in his suitcase and describes the scenery around him. The man then recalls memories he has when he looks at the house. He remembers building the walkway, planting the rhododendron, and driving his truck. He does not, however, remember his wife who is standing in the doorway.

This narrative epic contains striking imagery throughout. In the beginning of the poem, Herot Hall is described as being deserted for twelve long years. A reader might picture it being in rough condition, almost as if it were a shack. This assumption is wrong. Herot Hall is made out of ivory, iron, wood, and the greatest treasure, gold. Ivory could be found in the tusks of elephants and is a high quality material. Iron is a very heavy metal and is not easy to mold into shape, it also holds the structure in place. Wood is used in almost every building, even in today’s construction. Gold is a precious metal and is valued highly. Herot Hall gleams, almost as if it contains the light of Heaven. The hall cannot be destroyed by storms, only fire. Near the middle of the poem,

Robert Frost is an iconic poet in American literature today, and is seen as one of the most well known, popular, or respected twentieth century American poets. In his lifetime, Frost received four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry, and the Congressional Gold Medal. However, Robert Frost’s life was not always full of fame and wealth; he had a very difficult life from the very beginning. At age 11, his father died of tuberculosis; fifteen years later, his mother died of cancer. Frost committed his younger sister to a mental hospital, and many years later, committed his own daughter to a mental hospital as well. Both Robert and his wife Elinor suffered from depression throughout their lives, but considering the premature deaths of three of their children and the suicide of another, both maintained sanity very well. (1)

In Edwin Arlington Robinson's poetry, haunted houses sound like hanunted houses, dark hills sound like dark hills, but to Robinson it goes beyond that. By the metaphors, images, and emotion he puts into his writing, it is clear that he is feeling something beyond the paper and ink. Many of his works are dark and melancholy and reflect something that may have happened in his own life. There is a reoccuring theme that symbolizes his wife or significant other walking out on him. Other poems reflect his feelings about that situation. Robinson shares with his readers the anguish and recovery of the woman leaving him.

By examining the poetic devices and how Whitman uses them to heighten the sense of death and different facets of grief it becomes obvious that while both poems intimately explore death, grief, and morbidity, When Lilacs last in the Dooryard Bloom'd presents a more generalized, transcendental, mournful representation of grief, the poem Out of the Cradle Endlessly rocking confronts the reader with the stark pain and reality of death

Theodore Roethke, a prominent poet during the mid-1900s, was greatly influenced by his childhood experiences of being raised near a greenhouse and his psychological condition of manic depression (Long 4: 1387). Roethke’s poetry can be described to have a spiritual undertone because of his experiences. His poetry focuses on the quest for spiritual identity through mostly the use of natural materials. Roethke was able to become a distinguished poet because of his unique experiences. Roethke’s poetry is appreciated by diverse individuals because of his usage of everyday affairs, presentation of clichéd themes, and his variance in mood, while the underlying theme in his poetry is the diminishing of the differences between spiritual and naturalistic materials.