Everyone has a moment in life where they feel they have lost their honour and certainty in these moments of failures and uncertainty an individual’s life changes and that individual is given the chance to redeem themselves and get back on track to a more balanced life. Honour is all about respectability and worthiness to one’s self and those around them, as for certainty this is knowing one will live day to day with the reliability that not much will change in regards to chaos. Beginning with Setting Up The Drums, a poem written by Don McKay the poem is based around making that best out of a difficult situation. When faced with a difficult predicament in life it is easy to run away and not deal with it, but the author of this poem is saying …show more content…
Within this story Jack Hawthron caused an accident that resulted in the death of his younger brother, in the beguiling you see how this affects him he has lost all honour for himself as well as how his family and friends see him, he feels worthless and is consumed by his depression for what he has done. Not knowing how to deal with what has happened he starts playing the French horn as a coping mechanism to get through the pain and suffering of losing his brother. At first he is not any good to the point his teacher laughs at his abilities to play the horn, but he continues on and only uses that as motivation to get better. The astonishing results are he finds peace within himself to forgive himself for what has happened and move on, his love for music and the horn helped him to focus on something positive that would completely change his life around. He no longer lived in a state of depression and despair he was moving forward with life with a more positive attitude which lead to him felling worthy of honour. This has much on common with the first poem “ Setting up the Drum “ in that both of these texts the writers use instruments to show that one’s life can change and one can become Enlighted and positive even from the darkest moments of their lives. Overall the reader gets s a sense of hope and strength that someone can overcome difficult times and move forward to a meaningful
by using imagery and other literary devices to appeal to the reader. This poem was created to help society realize that there is a much needed change with young men who lives are constantly ending due to gang violence. The poem focuses on an undertaker who specializes in recreating the natural state of dead bodies, ones that have been mutilated. The undertaker specializes in this recreation for a specific group of young men, “gang members”.
In the poem “Making a Fist” by Naomi Shihab Nye, Nye uses metaphors to convey the meaning of mental and physical strength. For example, Nye uses the metaphor “A drum in the desert, harder and harder to hear” (3). The “drum” refers to a heart, continuing to beat, even though “I [she] felt the life is slipping out of me” (2). Nye uses this metaphor of comparing a drum and a heart to convey how as the heart beats, the body stays alive. This is similar to how as a drum beats, the music continues to play. The drum is the center of a musical piece, keeping the flow of all the other instruments in check, just as how the heart is the main source of blood to the body, keeping it alive. Additionally, in stanza two, Nye’s asks “‘How do you know if you
From the creation of harmonies to singing to instruments, music has been an abstract form of human expression. Although an auditory collection of pitches and volumes, musicians can manipulate the same notes and bring them alive for their audiences. The true emotion and energy that’s felt in music really comes from the player as feelings are transferred to and through the listener. This interaction between performer and the house is catharsis, the complete release of strong repressed emotions. Thanks to the musician, music has the ability to grasp people and cause them to sense emotions and feelings without lyrics or images even being necessary. Although it’s believed we can only hear with our ears, something about music makes it emotionally if not physically tangible. In James Baldwin’s short story “Sonny’s Blues,” a narrator certainly unaware of the impact of music invites himself to experience jazz for the first time. Baldwin uses the final scene of his story to argue that music has an effect on those who are able to experience it. Baldwin does this in one single moment by letting the fixed, practical minded, “well-intentioned” narrator experience catharsis from jazz as his growing, free-spirited brother communicates with him through jazz.
The book Drums, girls, and dangerous pie is an eminently inspirational book for the readers. Drums, girls, and dangerous pie were about a boy with leukemia and how his older brother made him feel better about the situation he was in. This book was very inspirational, seeing Steven’s character, how brave he was about the situation and how he made his little brother Jeffrey feel better. It was incredible, how he was able to juggle school work and taking care of his brother when he was home as well as practice for the school concert. At times he was a bit upset, which is natural, but what actually surprised me was when he came up with a bunch of ways to make Jeffrey laugh even when he was in lots of pain and depressed. This story was eminently
In the book “A Long Way Gone” music plays a role as a healer and a saviour.
The title of the poem is used to describe the authors night in the pawn shop. The author finds many Latin symbols in the pawn shop window each symbol is used to make up a salsa band. After describing that the object look like their at the city morgue the tone goes to depression feeling. The author express how these instruments were once used to bring to joy to people lives and now seeing them unused on Christmas night it makes him sad. The metaphor of the poem is the comparing the price tags on the instruments to the tag on a dead body at the morgue. Just like we a sense of sadness while seeing a death body the feels the same way while looking at the instruments being unused. The poem is real meaning is to show how much the author
Music is known to leave its mark on people helping them to overcome challenges in their lives or to give them courage to defy the odds. In one’s daily life, music is normally taken for granted or is seen as nothing special. As ordinary as it may seem, music can convey emotion in times when the body is numb or all hope is lost. Similarly, in The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway, the cello’s music gave people hope and determination to live their lives in spite of the rampant siege around them. Therefore, music very much impacts the lives of the principal characters Dragan, Kenan, and Arrow.
Symbolisation is also used to counteract the miserable life of an Australian housewife. This can be seen in the line “She practises a fugue, though it can matter to no one now if she plays well or not, (stanza one, line one).” This line suggests that the woman portrayed is a musician. The poem latter reads, “Once she played for Rubinstein, who yawned,” (stanza one, line nine). This suggests she was talented enough to present to Rubenstein but didn’t succeed. “The children caper, round a sprung mousetrap where a mouse lies dead.” This line symbolizes the housewife. Her dreams of becoming a musician are trapped within her own environment. This same line can also evaluate the difficulties and harshness of the urban Australian life. Seeming sad this is something that is exciting to the children.
As to dealing with repetition, The two lines “The Negro / With the trumpet at his lips” are repeated (1-2, 9-10, 33-34). The repetition of this picture fills in as both a steady indication of the difficult memories that inconvenienced the trumpet player and an approach to fortify his enthusiasm for music to facilitate that pain. Additionally, the repetition of these two lines implies that the trumpet player has in some ways end up plainly reliant on music. This idea is affirmed by the third stanza, in which the speaker states, "the rhythm/from the trumpet at his lips/is ecstasy/distilled from old desires—," alluding to his waiting desire "that is longing for the sea/where the sea's a bar-glass/sucker size" (21-24, 29-32). This shows he utilized alcohol in the past to overwhelm his agony, before supplanting it with music for the help. Additionally, the last stanza portrays music just like a "hypodermic needle/to his soul," alluding that he has an addiction to music (39-40). Without the music
How music can restore one's perspective is shown in the poem setting up the drums. The excerpt from Gardner’s Redemption and McKay’s Setting up the Drums portray how honor and certainty can be restored through music. In the excerpt from Redemption Jack Hawthorne goes through a great deal of grief and guilt. At 12 years old Jack Hawthorne killed his brother David in a farming accident. David was only 7 years old at
The most obvious thing that is important to the character is his adopted daughter, Anna. Throughout the narrative he shows that he cares for her happiness and her health. She is unable to speak clearly and tell her own story, so the character (father) tells it for her. The character is trying to show the reader how effective music can be as a therapy, and is using his own experience to prove the worth of musical therapy. He gives example after example of how music improved the life of his daughter, and how she looks forward to her day with music so eagerly. One line he says, “Ask her a direct question and you will get a stammered word or two at most. Play a song and she will begin to shout out the words, even if she has never heard them before. ”It is a testament to how much music can change her attitude and behaviours. It seems to fill her with confidence and strength where usually she is frail, a picture painted by the quote above.
Of all the things in a poem, its theme is one of the most common things we look for. “Ordinance in Lining Up” is a poem that can be interpreted in many different ways. One example of these themes is that we cannot escape from making choices in life, as seen through the lines “You must join one of [the lines]” (lines 2-3). Moreover, the poem tells us not only do we have to make choices, but we also have to make them with caution. This is indirectly stated in, “After careful consideration choose the line you are most attracted to” (lines 3-4).
The use of symbolism and imagery is beautifully orchestrated in a magnificent dance of emotion that is resonated throughout the poem. The two main ideas that are keen to resurface are that of personal growth and freedom. Furthermore, at first glimpse this can be seen as a simple poem about a women’s struggle with her counterpart. However, this meaning can be interpreted more profoundly than just the causality of a bad relationship.
Ossie Davis once said, “Any form of art is a form of power; it has an impact, it can affect change, it can not only move us, it makes us move”. Similarly, The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway tells the story of how three individuals Arrow, Dragan and Kenan suffering from the unrelenting and ruthlessness of war are impacted by one musician’s art. All three characters suffer from the war in different ways, but the art in the form of music finds a way to connect them all. Galloway’s novel illustrates that art helps lessen the suffering of those facing the brutality of war as the cellist’s music provides healing of the spirit, mind, and body. The cellist’s music provides hope and inspiration to the people of Sarajevo that they will be able
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