Mark Crawford's Poem 'Broken Window'

It talks about staying optimistic and to “never lose sight of the tiny lights”. On the long road to maturity, an adolescent may lose assurance on their loved ones, and people close to them. This may be because of all the recent circumstances, and the associated adversities that follow. Courage is one of the most important attributes a teenager needs while growing up, so they can overcome hardships and achieve their dreams, “to face the threatening storm….to reach the stars.” The poem also expresses about how teenagers need to have courage to overcome being tempted by things, which can seem okay at first, but turn out to be ‘poison’ which is used as a metaphor in the poem. I believe this represents peer pressure, such as the pressure to smoke or drink, “tempted by roadside whispers”, and this poem highlights that although they can be seen as “sweet fantasies”, it is much better to confront this pressure to become a better

The strongest usage of metaphor in this poem is in the first stanza in the line “write their knees with necessary scratches”. While scratches cannot be written, words can, so this insinuates that children learn with nature, and that despite its fading presence in today’s urban structures, it is a necessary learning tool for children. The poet has used this metaphor to remind the reader of their childhood, and how important it is to not just learn from the confines of a classroom, but in the world outside. This leads to create a sense of guilt in the reader for allowing such significant part of a child’s growing up to disintegrate into its concrete surroundings. Although a positive statement within itself, this metaphor brings upon a negative

The Glass Jar illustrates the journey of a young boy from childhood innocence to maturity, knowledge and experience. The poem conveys the potential and possibilities of a

In this poem, symbolism is used to help reader’s find deeper meaning in the little things included and show that everything comes back to the father’s fear of the child he adores growing older and more independent. “In a room full of books in a world of stories, he can recall not one, and soon he thinks the boy will give up on his father.” This sentence makes a reader assume that the story the five year old so

Window – The window could represent the connection between the public and private lives of the characters. The influence of public views on private lives. Somehow, someway everyone in the village tends to get involved in everyone’s problems, nothing can be private.

Once I was able to associate these words to emotions and issues present in everyday life, the poem started to make me feel sad. I began thinking about all of the emotions and feelings that everyone hides as they go about life. For example, how the waitress I see once a week may have an eating disorder, or how the singer I look up to just lost her son, or the businessman who got laid off today. Everyone has their own personal battle that they carry everywhere, at any given moment. This explains why the setting is so plain, since the internal struggles people face affect them even at a bus stop. While each person waits, the waitress may be thinking about how much skinnier the person next to her is. The singer could be remembering when she held her baby. And the business man could be planning how to break the news to his wife. No matter how small, everyone experiences a type of trauma or bad experience, and this poem seemed to show what happens when these emotions become bottled up. No one can help each other because they are so stuck within their own issues. The difficulty helping others reminded me of the idea of having to take care of yourself before being able to take care of others.

Emerson starts the poem off with a list of items that where hand made by someone that the speaker has a close relationship with. The speaker explains that they gave away most of the gifts to people who would enjoy them and never know the hours invested into them, except for a mirror surrounded by a hand carved wood frame. Then the speakers starts to describe the mirror and how the reflection allowed the mirror to stay in the speakers position; explaining that the reflective surface makes the mirror a backward window. Finally, the speaker depicts a time when they did notice the mirror, not because of the reflection, but darkening wood that the frame is made of, where Emerson reveals the theme of the poem.

`In Robert Gray’s poems, he uses language to capture human experiences. In two of his poems; old house and late ferry, gray has effectively captured human experiences by his varies poetic languages and through insight and feeling. Throughout both texts late ferry and old house, gray’s main message in the poems, with his critical analysis, is the destruction of nature by mankind.

Also, ‘the sun threw a bright dust-laden bar through one of the side windows’, this represents that the little hope in the bunk house only helps to further illuminate the darkness and harshness of society. In a setting, such as the ranch, where dreams are suppressed and suffocated, they take on a greater importance and significance to the mens lives, they rely on the dreams to get by.

Stanley relates the poem to the reader by reminding them the horrific view and dreadful pain of

The main theme of the poem however, is the sadness and misfortune that accompany us on our journey through life. The Wilson River Road, in which the events of the poem take place, is symbolic of the road of life that we all travel upon. The darkness and the setting of the poem point to the seclusion and indecision that we experience when dealing with life’s tragedies. Many people feel as confused as the narrator does when he was “stumbling back of the car” (5, 911) in his attempt to do the right thing. In his moment of decision, though, the only company the narrator had was the silent and unheeding world around him.

The other section where symbolism is evident is “Small Porch in the Woods.” It is divided into several poems. In the first one, there is the mention of “unshifting star” which represents a change that is undisturbed. It is the turning point of the society. Despite the challenges communities face in their life, their ambition leads them towards achieving their objectives in life. The second poem under this section is about a heavy rain that fell in the month of April. Heavy rain is the representation of unhappy moments. The description presented by the narrator shows that it is a sad moment where everything is carried away. Throughout the poem, the rain is seen, as a lesson

The poet utilizes a metaphor of a glass door with shutters to express how he is shut out of something that is supposed to be transparent. There is also irony with this because they are trying to block him out, but he can still see them clearly.

In stanza one, Judith Wright utilizes personification “rivers hindered him” and “thorn branches caught at his eyes to make him blind” coupled with metaphor “the sky turned into an unlucky opal” to emphasise nature’s hindrance of the blacksmith boy, if the poem is to be deemed as a metaphorical representation of

The poet becomes increasingly uncomfortable as he begins to read about specific colors. The "jacket yellow in the green meadow" and the "red rooftops easy to spot in the valley" would hold significance for an audience with sight, but in the case of the blind man, they are worthless beyond their literal meaning (15-16). While the poet may have meant to convey a message to the reader through the red rooftops, his efforts were nullified by the blind man, and he fears that his work is now inadequate. Again, the poet appears to hesitate; he wants to "pass over" the "cathedral's ceiling," "the farewell wave," and "the album with the faces," yet he knows "it's not an option" (19-23). He feels guilty for making his poem so reliant on imagery, and the fear that he is inadequate as a writer continues to