Summary Of The Tone Of Carrt Sandburg Grass

Kenneth Slessor’s poignant poem, ‘Beach Burial’ contemplates on the improper and unfair burial that the Australian soldiers, who were at war with the Germans during World War 2, receive as a result of the fact that they could not get back home. The main idea that the poet was trying to get across was that as a result of the soldiers not being able to get a proper burial, they are not able to be recognized and are considered to be just another casualty of war: without honor or recognition. The poem emphasizes sadness on the completely useless waste of life; they are simply left how they had died and are now cared by only nature. In the poem, it appears as if these men are soldiers fighting a war at

In Carl Sandburg’s, Grass, it shows how soldiers may get confused and often ask questions along the lines of “what is this place?” (8) during battle. Writers include questions like this in their pieces to emphasize the confusion war can leave on somebody. In The Yellow Birds, Powers uses a stream of consciousness as a soldier pours out his thoughts when returning from war. This represents the chaos that war can bring out about in a person’s mind. A poem where a woman dreams that her lover “would stumble after bewildered by [her] laugh” (Lowell 44-45) is written in iambic meter. The heartbeat pattern represents the love she yearned for but would not receive, because her lover died in

Whitman uses the grass as a metaphor to imply that all people are connected. Whitman uses the grass to represent things he cannot explicitly name. People are all different, individual, but the blades function together. Everyone is needed to make up the grass; one blade cannot stand-alone. The grass encompasses all of America, regardless of race, gender, or religion. Grass grows everywhere there is water and touches everyone. This is one of the ways Whitman seeks to appeal to everyone through language.

It’s amazing how much Sandburg has managed to convey with such a short poem, especially when one considers the level of repetition which actually reduces the absolute number of lines to about 6 lines. There are other lessons to be learnt from this. By his choice of battles, Gettysberg, Ypres, Verdun etc Sandburg refers to battles that involved great carnage. Battles with a death toll or casualty rate so high that it is unthinkable that we should speak of them as dispassionately as he does. But the use of the names is far more effective in conveying this point than having to spell it out in detail. He can get away with the dispassionate tone and make it “fit” the poem without seeming forced by adopting the unusual view point of having the grass as the observer and the first person speaker. Not only does he cloak the grass with personality but he simultaneously creates a narrator who is present throughout time and who is accordingly in a position to observe the folly of man through history. Other than the merest hint of a rhyme across Waterloo / Verdun, this poem is devoid of rhyme. Why? Rhyme closes lines, links lines together, gives the work a sense of completion and wholeness which is

In the middle of the poem, the speaker arrives at the number of casualties from the war. When he reads this number he can’t believe that he is still alive. As he reads down the names he uses the visual imagery and simile to describe how he expected to find his own name in “letters like smoke” (line 16). This helps the reader understand how lucky the speaker felt about somehow escaping the war still alive. As he goes

The title of the poem automatically shifts the reader's mind to expect a poem about war and death. However, after reading the title and seeing how clear it is, when taken literally, line one of the poem is very confusing. If we try to understand the poem at a basic literal level, here’s what's happening: There is a gunner in the ball turret, underneath a bomber plane. It is so cold up high that the lining of his wet jacket is being

Death is too much to handle for most people, sometimes it can rip a family apart. To take away this sadness grass hides and disguises death with a layer of dirt and a thin layer of green blades on the top. Will people realize that history is repeating itself and the ending is just more death and more sadness? Bodies pile up and are then covered by grass it is a repeating process in history and no one is learning their lesson. When the grass grows over the bodies it disguises the fields where the bodies lay, and makes the location of the battles uncertain, but you can not disguise the cold air and that feeling of death that surrounds the battlegrounds of “Gettysburg… /Ypres and Verdun…/ Austerlitz and Waterloo” (Lines 1,4, and 5). Grass does this to help people heal; the sadness is just too much and they do not need to be reminded by the bodies. They can not feel this repeating process of grief it hurts the heart to much. Grass is a special aid for the earth and is not given enough credit for its duties and its deeds it has

Sharon Olds’ “Leningrad Cemetery, Winter of 1941” is a very sad and dreary poem. This is because Olds writes about the Battle of Leningrad, a 900-day siege of Leningrad during World War II, and the lifelessness that is going on afterwards. Olds’ word choice throughout the poem is very important to the meaning of this poem. The way that she writes about this battle paints a very clear picture in my mind of what she is describing. Many times thorough the poem, Olds compares life and death many times with different comparisons.

The description of a wounded soldier falling is an image etched in the minds of the soldiers in the battlefield. “He danced with tall grass / for a moment, like he was swaying / with a woman” (lines 1-3). The soldiers had to hold on to whatever hope that had of seeing their families again. This is evident in the fact that the dead soldier had a picture of his loved one in his hand when he died. “I slid the wallet into his pocket / & turned him over, so he wouldn’t be / kissing the ground” (15-17). The black soldier putting the picture in the dead soldier’s wallet and the wallet back in his pocket shows respect for the fallen, no matter the race of the soldier or if he was the enemy. Turning the soldier face up, shows dignity and honor to the fallen one. This act also shows compassion on the part of the black soldier. A fallen soldier reminds them that they never know when they will become a casualty of war. When it comes to loss, all the soldiers on both sides share a common

The poem starts with similar word choices as ‘The Soldier’ but written in the perspective of the mother. The mother tells his son that when he dies he will be in a place of ‘quietness’ and free from the ‘loss and bloodshed’. This reinforces the fact that the battlefield was full of horrors and death. The poem then moves onto how ‘men may rest themselves and dream of nought’ explaining that the soldiers do not have to fear for their lives after their death. This illustrates how they feared for their lives and had negative connotations.

In grass, line 1 in the first stanza states that “Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo” (Sandburg 126). The use of the word Austerlitz points out to the historic Battle of Austerlitz. Historically, the Battle of Austerlitz occurred in 1805 involving armies from French, Austria, and Russia. There was a high number of casualties in the battle, which the phrase discusses by stating “pile the bodies high” (Sandburg 126). Similarly,

In stanza six of the poem "Song of Myself", by Walt Whitman, he poses the question "What is the grass?" I believe that grass is a metaphor for the cycle of life. Throughout the poem Whitman points out images that grass could represent. All of these images stem from the life and death that we come to expect in our lifetime. During your life you will experience death, it at times surrounds you, but if you look past the grief and look to the beauty you will see that it is a cycle that keeps our world in balance. The images of flags, tears, children and older people that are torn from the ones they love, but only to soon return to other lost ones are all parts of Walt Whitman's

The poet then presents a scene of patriotic relevance as he describes a scene of a regiment marching into battle with their “flag” and “Eagle with crest of red and gold” (17-18). When people think of flags, they think of patriotism and representing their country. Eagles also symbolize freedom but as readers can witness in the work, the poet makes it seem as if these men were created not to enjoy the gift of life for one moment by him saying “These men were born to drill and die” (19). This comes across to the reader as almost inhumane. Then by illustrating an image of a field of thousands of dead corpses makes any reader wonder why people even go to war. The whole fourth stanza paints a picture of living human being going into a battle with most, if not any, making it out alive. Like stated before, the speaker in the poem builds a case for those people that opposed to war even though the title of the poem might

More times than not, it is acceptable to state that a handful of humans leave work for someone else to cease. Is this human instinct? Are these individuals becoming lazier? Are these people just not caring? Or are these people unaware or forgetful of what their actions are creating to everyone around them?

“The Soldier” is a poem about a generic, yet ideal soldier, which is indicated by Rupert Brooke’s use of the word “The” instead of “A” when describing the soldier in the title. The usage of “I” and “me” in the poem suggests a first person point of view, which makes the poem more personal and realistic to the reader. This poem is a sonnet because the first stanza contains eight lines and the second stanza contains six. Throughout “The Soldier,” the repetition of “English” and “England” shows how important his homeland is to the soldier and his high level of patriotism. In line five, England is personified, and although England is not a living thing, the soldier sees his country as his creator and as a sort of mother figure. Brooke’s use of alliteration throughout the poem helps it flow; the use of caesura breaks up the lines. Perfect external rhyme scheme and iambic pentameter are used throughout the poem, which both give the poem flow and rhythm. The “dust” in lines four and five is a metaphor for the soldier’s life; England created him and he will become “dust concealed” when he dies and is buried. The first stanza of “The Soldier” uses various lines of imagery: “some corner of a foreign field… In that rich earth a richer dust concealed… flowers… Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.” These forms of imagery emphasize the soldier’s death and how his death will cleanse him of any wrongdoings he had done in his time on earth. The “rivers” and “suns” are personified as