The Tomcat And The Maori Jesus And Ballad Of Calvary Street Poem Analysis

‘Look We Have Come Through! The title of this section suggests a note of hope and faith in human resilience. How far is this reflected in the poems?’

Imagine someone dying from a sickness. They know that they are on their last leg. They can either fight to stay alive, or they can give up hope and pass away. People control their own fate. Controlling their own fate means that they decide when it is time for them to die, and don’t just lay down and accept death. This idea can be seen in in many pieces of text including the following poems. “Invictus” by William Ernest Henley and “Do not go gentle into that good night” by Dylan Thomas. Both authors express the theme of people control their own fate.

Our knowledge of the generic conventions used in poetry influences our understanding of the text. “The Firstborn”, a poem by Aboriginal author Jack Davis, enables the reader to determine the poem as a graphic protest about the extinction of and discrimination against the Australian Indigenous people, and the loss of their ethnicity, as their world collides with the Western culture. By focussing on my understanding of both generic conventions and author’s context, I am able to conclude that the poem concerns a tragedy within the Aboriginal community.

Childhood is portrayed as a time of safety that is often looked back upon with nostalgia from an adult perspective. Monosyllabic words are used to show the simplicity of childhood life, for example in the line “the thing I could not grasp or name”. The ‘spring violets’ are ‘in their loamy bed’ and are no longer frail and melancholy, and the memory takes place on a ‘hot afternoon’ in contrast to the ‘cold dusk’ that represents the present. Childhood is represented as a joyful, vivacious time in one’s life, and the value of a stable family life is conveyed. The unexpected integration of Australian vernacular in the line ‘it will soon be night, you goose’, adds a sense of freedom and relaxation to the otherwise formal discourse and more rigid structure of the poem, once again reflects the simplicity and innocence that is associated with childhood. The use of

All times, the disappearance of cherishable beings brings people unbearable agony. Eventually, they cry, and then suffer more heartache, yet the attitudes when confronting a farewell vary dynamically within individuals. In Dylan Thomas’ “Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night” and Elizabeth Bishop’s “One Art”, both speakers experience a painful loss. However, while Thomas strongly opposes the undeniable fact of his father’s death process, Bishop reluctantly accepts the departure of her beloved. The two speakers react differently to recover from the ineluctable sadness, to regain inner peace. In the end, the poems’ comparison concludes losing valued relations is distressingly unavoidable, and that there is no ideal way to cope with losses. Therefore,

Steven Herrick’s verse novel “By the River” is very successful in conveying the significant ideas about human nature. He uses key themes such as grief, environmental influence and coming of age to explore these ideas. To convey the themes Herrick uses multiple techniques such as imagery, repetition, personification and positive and negative influence throughout his text.

One’s identity may be questioned when suffering; ultimately suffering is what creates one’s sense of self or what destroys it. The poetry of John Donne and the play W;t, 1993, by Margaret Edson, both illustrate and explore a sense of suffering and identity. In John Donne’s poetry, suffering, both emotionally and physically allows the speaker to understand their identity in more depth, in comparison to Margaret Edson’s play, W;t, Vivian’s suffering leads her identity to be stripped away. In Donne’s sonnet, ‘If poysonous mineralls’ we are shown suffering religiously and emotionally, through one’s sin’s, questioning god’s justice, which leads to a realisation of one’s identity. In Margaret Edson’s play, W;t, Vivian’s emotional suffering

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.

Gwen Harwood’s poetry endures to engage readers through its poetic treatment of loss and consolation. Gwen Harwood’s seemingly ironic simultaneous examination of the personal and the universal is regarded as holding sufficient textual integrity that it has come to resonate with a broad audience and a number of critical perspectives. This is clearly evident within her poems ‘At Mornington’ and ‘A Valediction’, these specific texts have a main focus on motif that once innocence is lost it cannot be reclaimed, and it is only through appreciating the value of what we have lost that we can experience comfort and achieve growth.

Ross Gay’s book Against Which, portrays his poetry to readers allowing them to gain understanding of the cruel world that one lives in. Moreover, the unusual brutalities that people are inevitable confronted with in life. The common denominators within Gay’s poems such as violence, love, fear, and loss allows the reader to visualize characters’ transformation within his poems. In a world of calamity, Gay has created poems that portray the corporal conforming to gender and sex but also human development. Using a reader-response criticism lens, I will be demonstrating my interpretation of Ross Gay’s poems and the meaning that I believe to be a common interpretation of his work. Within, Gay’s poems, “It Starts at Birth” and Angels Out of Reach” one is able to see a pattern of human transformation. By experiencing pain, love, loss, fear, and wisdom one is able to see Gay’s characters evolve through the narrators and readers gaze. In doing so, one is able to reflect on Gay’s poems and gain wisdom themselves.

Differences in people’s opinions can cause major conflicts, however fighting against one’s own opposing beliefs can be tougher to resolve. Poets William Blake, G.M. Hopkins and Gwen Harwood have produced various poems epitomising how these internal struggles can become quite detrimental. Despite the differences in time periods and their varying cultural backgrounds, they all convey deep messages about the struggles with worshipping their faith or religion, handling ideas surrounding mortality and dealing with life’s regrets formed by adverse situations.

In Wordsworth’s Preface to Lyrical Ballads, he writes, “I have wished to keep my reader in the company of flesh and blood, persuaded that by so doing I shall interest him” (297). With this assertion, Wordsworth highlights his desire that readers of his poetry respond with sentiment when presented with genuine, unembellished characters. His attempts to prove this claim can be seen in the poems Michael and The Ruined Cottage. Observing how the two poems handle certain rhetorical devices—a frame of narration, personification of nature, meditation on ordinary objects, and Biblical allusion—reveals their intended purpose as promotions of empathy. Discerning the similarities and differences between Michael and The Ruined Cottage allows the moral lessons within Wordsworth’s poetic experimentation to be uncovered.

In the poems “The Wanderer” and “The Dream of the Rood,” anonymous authors give way to the idea that an Almighty God will solve every problem a person has by doing two things: 1) drawing upon the memories of a warrior who has lost everything near and dear to him due to war, and 2) entering the dream of a man who has been exiled and isolated. Each piece takes its reader through the trials and tribulations that one may not relate to in this era, yet the reader is still there alongside the character wanting them to find peace with their world and themselves. Initially, it is believed that the characters will overcome their hardships and achieve the happiness they seek. However, as the reader delves deeper into the character’s story, there is an overwhelming sense of incompleteness. What actually happens at the end of each piece is not written in stone - telling us the story is not whole - nor has a conclusion been reached. The intrapersonal thoughts being shared with the reader reveal the obstacles that keep an overall wholeness from occurring.

The powerful metaphors employed in this work compare the “good night” with the crushing blow of death and the“wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight” to heroism and achievement. Dylan uses oxymorons and similes to emphasize the desperation he felt to highlight the conflicts of man. The “blinding sight”, the “fierce tears” and the “blind eyes [that] could blaze like meteors and be gay,” serve

How would you feel to have a father, mother, sister or brother taken away because of the treachery war .Good morning Mrs Naidoo and fellow classmates, today I will be analysing Christopher Wallace-Crabbe’s Australian War poem Other people and how it highlights how it has impacted the reader in offering insights on the Australian context. This poem discuss the futility during the First World War and war in general. I find this poem ‘other people’ is interesting because it foreshadows the darker side to war.