Ten Tall Oak Trees Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Trees stand there, not saying a word, frozen. Melinda doesn’t talk a substantial amount in her class and social life, therefore, it is like she is frozen, not speaking. A dead tree can represent how Melinda wasn’t able to speak, the leaves on the dead tree are still clinging onto it, hoping it can live longer. Like that, Melinda would cling onto the idea that she would return to her happy self, maybe being able to freely express herself again. During Melinda’s science class, she draws a willow tree drooping into the water, this represents her sadness. “I look out the window. No limos... Now when I really want to leave, no one will give me a ride. I sketch a willow tree drooping into the water” (page 147). This shows how the willow tree expresses her negative emotion without saying a word. When Melinda’s dad was chopping down their tree; of course, it couldn’t say anything because it is only a tree. “ He is killing the tree... The tree is dying... There’s nothing to do or say. We watch in silence as the tree crashes piece by piece to the damp ground,” (page 187). This shows that when Melinda got raped, she did not say anything, instead she was dying inside, depression taking over. A tree in its various stages was an object that describes Melinda’s freshman year from the beginning to the

The loss of Aboriginal ethnicity is also highlighted when the land asks “Where are the laws and legends I gave?” This dates back to the Aboriginal culture, as their spirituality is inextricably linked to the land. They believe everything on the vast landscape has meaning and purpose. As long as they look after the land, the land will thereby return the favour. However, through time, Aboriginals have begun shifting away from their original beliefs as their world collides with the Western world. Different meanings could be made out of this; such as the more Aboriginals walk away from their culture, the less inclined the land will be to look after them, thus breaking the chain of their spirituality and beliefs. Caesuras such as full stops and question marks are used are pauses for a moment of reflection. Through the reader’s understanding of the poem’s structure, they are able to not only understand how the poem is to be read but also get the feel and emotions coming across from the poet.

In Poetry authors use a range of literary techniques. These techniques can include the use of rhyme, alliteration, personification, similes, metaphors and imagery. The poems that will be compared in this essay include: My Country by Dorothea Mackellar, The Eagle by Alfred Lord Tennyson and Old Man Platypus by Banjo Patterson.

The mood of the speaker changes to guilt as the speaker and her mother realize they would "crawl" with "shame" and leave an "emptiness" in their father's heart and yard. The author negatively connotes "crawl," "shame," and "emptiness" to invoke a more serious and shameful tone. The beginning of the conveyed a more matter-of-fact and pragmatic tone, but changes into a more sentimental one by the end to convey family is more important than the money. The symbol of the tree represents the family, and connects it to their father's hard work and dedication to the family. If they were to cut it down, it would be symbolic of their betrayal. Imagery of the tree is used to describe the freedom and beauty of the tree as it "swings through another year of sun and leaping winds, of leaves and bounding fruit." The tree represents their family bond and how strong it is even through the "whip-crack of the mortgage."

Hirshfield writes this poem in second person to give life to the poem so that the poem speaks to the reader. The poem starts by accusing the reader of letting the redwood grow near the house. “It is foolish” (line 1) lets the reader know that nature should not be growing this close to your home. Hirshfield takes the liberty to talk straight to the reader through the speaker in telling them that it is nonsense to let nature be so close to a material object such as a house. The reader can visually see a “young redwood// grow next to a house” (line 2, 3). The tree starts to symbolize the beauty of nature growing against the materialistic world.

Oodgeroo Noonuccal is an Australian poet who wrote the poems ‘We are going’ and ‘Let us not be bitter’. Her perspective on Aboriginal rights is concern, passion and worry for her people and land. Using vivid imagery, poetic structure, enjambment for example, and poetic techniques such as inclusive language and symbolism conveys these feelings to her audience clearly. Oodgeroo uses vivid imagery to show her despair and misery towards what had happened to the treatment of the sacred land and the Aboriginal people. She uses a poetic structure called enjambment to help convince the Indigenous people to continue to move on like the flow of her poem. An Oodgeroo Noonuccal uses poetic techniques such as inclusive language and symbolism to explain the Aboriginal people’s connection

The diction in the excerpt is an essential component to the dramatization of the plot’s central incident. Jewett uses rich language to intensify the simple nature of the main character Sylvia’s journey up a “great pine-tree.” For example, in describing the tree, the narrator uses personification as he mentions the “huge tree asleep yet in the paling moonlight.” The use of personification harkens back to those universal moments in childhood in which everything alive had human feelings, and creates an emotional attachment between the reader and the tree. Jewett also uses other figurative language, like similes, to relate the grandeur of the tree to the audience. She writes, “It [the tree] was like a great main-mast to the voyaging earth…” In comparing the tree to the great mast of a ship, the author invokes feelings of awe at its size.

Trees are important not only physically but also spiritually and for many this fact is lost. Physically trees provide humans with beauty and a healthy ecosystem. Spiritually trees provide humans a connection to nature. Their importance has been lost in our modern times as humans further separate themselves from nature. While forgotten by many, their actions still resonate. The two modern poems “The Tree Agreement” by Elise Paschen and “Living Tree” by Robert Morgan trumpet the value trees hold in comparable ways. In the poem “The Tree Agreement” the speaker argues for the benefits of the Siberian Elm against a disagreeing neighbor. By structuring the poem in this manner, the poet highlights how people are blind to the services trees provide while simultaneously highlighting said services. The tree is portrayed almost as a friend or ally to the speaker. The speaker describes not only to the significance of the tree to humans like the neighbor and the speaker but also to the other living creatures surrounding them. The poem “Living Tree” focuses on the actions performed by trees in cemeteries. This poem follows a more spiritual route when compared to Paschen’s poem. This poem describes the process those who have been buried go through and the role trees play in this process. The trees in this poem are portrayed as lightning rods for the chemicals and spirits of the dead. This relationship is portrayed positively, as the trees are a monument to the passing of life. These poems

It creates a mood that readers can understand. Williams does a wonderful job contrasting death and life; his use of “attiring” and “disattiring” basically narrates how trees lose their leaves, leaving them “clothless”, but then the branches are preparing for what’s to come--their rebirth in the coming season. The liquid moon makes me think that he’s trying to create irony; the moon is liquid, as if melted, even though it’s winter time and everything is supposed to be frozen. The irony is subtle, yet very impactful when you notice it. Perhaps the long branches represent the strength of the trees despite the harsh environment around them. The buds can be seen as children being prepared by their parents for what’s to come, possible teaching them what to do and what not to do so that they can survive the winter and bloom in the spring. Like letting a child go off to college after years of care so that they can become their own person. The “wise trees” have experience, an experience that they have to share with their “buds”. The wise stand sleeping in the cold to take their last breath and let their children take their places. This poem is very meaningful because Williams creates a very important similarity between the trees and humans. Readers can relate because most parents go through the stage of letting their children go and letting them continue what they

The narrator's vision of her ancestors expanding a plentiful life is emphasized with the picturesque “blue fields…with leaves and vines and orchards.” This then strikes the narrator with the realization that cutting down the tree would be a betrayal to their ancestors, their dreams and the demise of the heritage of the

You are to create a representation of TWO of the poems studied in class and

Many people believe that this mimics Whitman's life. Living in a life of social separation much of the time, he still managed to succeed not only with his writing, but also in life itself. However, in line five Whitman goes on to say that he wonders how the tree could grow such joyous leaves while being alone. He himself says that he could not survive if put in the same situation. Whitman did however lead a joyous and happy life in many peoples opinion, even though he did not enjoy the social life many other had during his lifetime. His own opinion of himself not being lonely may be frayed in order to spare the image he proposes to the public in his writings. The next few lines are interesting because of the way they could possible spell out Whitman's life. In the poem, he breaks of a twig, wraps some moss around it, and takes it to he room and places it in plain view. This may parallel his life by way of his memory. The twig may represent pieces of his memory that were enjoyable to him. He then takes the twig and places it in his room signifying that he wants to be able to constantly see those fond memories. Again Whitman replies by saying he did not do this to remind him of his friends, but in reality he may have just said this to help keep a good report with his readers about his lifestyle.

The pulse of the poem is set in the very first line of the first strophe: A Rock, A River, A Tree, by the iambic trimester—the closest to the rhythm of the heart. Everything even the indefinite articles are capitalized to emphasize their importance and the personification of the subsequent line: hosts to species long since departed. Such anthropomorphism is carried on, when the Rock cries out, the Rivers sings and the Tree speaks. The first two lines of the poem concurrently epitomize the rhetorical device of apposition—the second element serves as an explanation of the first.[3] The whole first strophe can be interpreted as ethos, an attempt to establish credibility as if uttering: “Look, we have been here since before dinosaurs and mastodons,

Wright further conveys the poignancy of the Aborigines’ disappearance in the third stanza. Structurally, the third and first stanzas parallel each other; both list aspects of indigenous Australian culture that no longer exist. In the first stanza, Wright highlights the loss of the “song” and the “dance”. Similarly, in the third stanza, she notes the absence of the “hunter” and the “spear”. Wright describes the “spear” as “splintered underground”, giving the reader an image of a weapon broken, smothered in the dirt, lying unseen. Thus, the poet stresses the extinction of the Aboriginal tribal traditions. Wright also notes, through her metaphor of the “painted bodies/a dream the world breathed sleeping and forgot” that rituals such as corroboree are no longer practiced. Her use of the words “dream”, “sleeping”, and “forgot” emphasizes that these ancient rituals, so much a part of Aboriginal culture, have ceased to live on today. Wright then states that “the nomad feet are still”. Here, the word “nomad” refers to the itinerant lifestyle of the Aborigines, “still” now, since the Aboriginal way of life no longer has any value in Australian society.

The last line changes the whole perception of the poem. It tells the reader, she was telling the story to someone she cares greatly for. “As free as I would feel when your love would surround me.” (Line 16) It is now realized that the speaker was comparing her strong connection to the woods to another person. This poem is a free verse poem. The author uses