Follower

This poem was written by Seamus Heaney. The poet tells the story of his childhood with his father on the countryside. He follows his father while he ploughs throughout the field. The poet admires the way his father does this. He describes the action of ploughing as amazing and perfectly done. He is willing to follow his father’s footsteps. He achieves his dream as his father is too old to continue doing the job. The old man takes the place of his son, inverting roles. This is a typical case of the son taking care of the father’s lifetime achievement, working on it and improving what was left by the older man.

There is also a description of the physical conditions of the father in the very beginning of the poem, and the reader is also informed about this man’s works as a farmer. The man is described as a very hard-working person. The title refers to the admiration that the poet feels for his father and it also represents the desire of being like him in a future.

The author places himself in his childhood, and gives us his own point of view about the personal relation that he had with his father, which was very special and close. Being the first of nine children made this easier and is considered to be important.

The author is an Irish poet. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995.

Martina Izurieta and Manuela Scatena Bugallo

Childhood by Frances Cornford

Frances Cornford

Frances Cornford, granddaughter of Charles Darwin, was born in Cambridge, England, in 1886, where she also died, in 1960. She was awarded the Queen’s Medal for Poetry in 1959.

‘Childhood’ explores a dual perspective on the ageing process. On the one hand, it is a child who watches ‘through the banisters’ and is ‘helplessly young’, but the whole poem is a memory – ‘I used to think’. Between the lines, the reader understands that the crafting narrator is moving towards old age. Both young and old are ‘helpless’ in the progression of time.

These wider considerations are based on precise, particular memories and observations. The first section vividly describes the physical features of old age, while the second centres around the moment of realisation about ‘My great-aunt Etty’s friend’ and her rolling beads from a broken necklace.

Though written in one stanza, consider the effects of Cornford’s use of short lines. The first serves to complete the childish observation before the epiphany in the poem’s second section, while the final short line provides the ambivalent conclusion. Note the way too that the couplets, established in the early part of the poem, break up in the last four lines. 

Childhood

I used to think that grown-up people chose

To have stiff backs and wrinkles round their nose,

And veins like small fat snakes on either hand,

On purpose to be grand.

Till through the banister I watched one day

My great-aunt Etty's friend who was going away,

And how her onyx beads had come unstrung.

I saw her grope to find them as they rolled;

And then I knew that she was helplessly old,

As I was helplessly young.

Analysis

The speaker of this poem is looking back on an occasion in her life when she first realized that both young and old people are helpless against the aging process. In the first four verses she tells us that she used to think grown-ups "chose" those physical defects that marked them as old, but the speaker also thought they chose them "to be grand." This thought indicates that the speaker was very young, since she thought stiff backs, wrinkles, and veined hands were "grand."

The lines 6-10 contain the reason for the speaker's changed opinion about aging grown-ups. She had told us that she used to believe that the grown-ups "chose" those aging qualities until she observed her great-aunt's friend groping helplessly for her beads. The speaker realizes that it is not likely a person would choose to have such difficulty just retrieving some loose beads, so she then realizes that they probably don't choose those visible physical defects either. This observation led the speaker to change her perspective: the adults were just helpless as they acquired those old-age characteristics, and their helplessness paralleled her own, the helplessness of being young.

The rime scheme in this poem is AA, BB, CC, DE, ED. An interesting rime scheme, but as I mentioned earlier, I believe the rime scheme interferes with meaning. Take "wrinkles round their nose," for example; wrinkles usually form around the eyes and mouth. Even in a very old person, wrinkles are seldom noticeable around the nose. In line six the friend "is going away"; while "away" provides a nice rime with "day," it is vague. Perhaps the speaker wants us to infer that the friend was dying, but "going away" does not clearly convey that message.

Source

http://www.google.com.ar/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=analysis%20of%20childhood%20poem&source=web&cd=5&cad=rja&ved=0CEwQFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpillay6c2011.wikispaces.com%2Ffile%2Fview%2FAnalysis%2Bof%2BChildhood.docx&ei=G2WrUOHdOozg8ASfkYDoBw&usg=AFQjCNEjjUgV7ouPXmzzo8G751iLbgEyMA

Country School , Allen Curnow– Poem analysis

In this poem, the persona pays a visit to his old school where he takes a nostalgic walk down memory lane and recalls his childhood. As this poem reflects childhood reminiscence, the persona seems to realize that things are not as bad as they seemed before along with the portrayal of the overall issue of aging. However, the tone of the persona seems to sway between enthusiastic and apathetic as there are many a times when the tones seem to differ between two extremes.

In this poem, the persona describes a country school that seems to be in a somewhat dilapidated condition. The vivid image drawn by the alliterative phrase 'Paint all peeled' supports the fact that the school is indeed deteriorating. With the phrase 'tufts topping', one is able to picture a country school architect with pinus tufts on it 'roof ridge', establishing an image of a typical country school. Through the usage of colloquial language, the vivid images seem to hold a lot of details, for instance the word 'dunny' evolves a picture of the local Australian toilets enlightening the audience to the smallest of details. Furthermore, 'Girls squeal skipping' conjures up an auditory image as the little kids play around.

Several kinds of sound effect helps describe what the persona is going through. The fluid 'r' sounds in rank, and roof-ridge help integrate the ideas, linking them and helping form a wider image of the country school. Also the 'b' sounds in 'bargeboard, weatherboard and gibbet belfry' calls attention to the detailed observation again helping in building up the vivid image.

Allen Curnow has employed parallelism as well as repetition in order to draw links in this poem. The parallel comparison of 'How small; how sad', draws a link with how the persona seems to be recalling his days back in school. The passing of time and his aging is revealed for the very doors that seemed huge as a kid now seems to be described as being rather 'small'. The persona refers to himself as a third person and this is deduced through the repetition of the word 'you'. Perhaps the persona had a tough time reconnecting with his old school that he felt more comfortable referring himself as a third person. 

Having a look at the poem specifically, the first stanza could be a parallel to the educational experience Allen Curnow had. By putting these words into his poem he is able to associate his experience with that of the reader’s possible experience of school.

In the second stanza, his memory, however, is rippled with more imagery throughout the stanza. Perhaps Curnow is trying to emphasise the importance of our senses when it comes to creating a memory. That by visiting this old school, this old memory- the images around him that were once remembered through the sense of hearing, are now being remembered through the sense of sight. In the third stanza Curnow makes comparisons between the three main images in this poem… You, Pinus, and the School. In doing this he is able to portray the theme of time. The Pinus which lives “less than the life of a man”, you as “the man”, and the school which was there before you were and was there after you left. The most important line in this stanza however is “Together your lives began.” This line suggests an end which makes it personal and emotional to the reader. Curnow puts into perspective that our lives begin with education/schooling in some form. Either in the form of a classic schoolhouse education or in the form of a “mature” figurehead. Perhaps Curnow is trying to put across that Pinus could stand for this “mature” figurehead and that throughout life the roll of teacher will change, e.g. nun, mother, lecturer and so on. However this “sapling” made its appearance in your life as soon as your educating of the world began, and as you grew in knowledge so did its influence on you, or people’s influence on you.  The last stanza seems to group all the imagery and mood created in the precious stanzas, into established themes. Leaving the reader wondering in reflection of their own experiences with education.

Lucía Neira & Martina Cervi

Source:  http://www.markedbyteachers.com/as-and-a-level/english/poetry-analysis-of-country-school-allen-curnow.html

My Parents – Stephen Spender

This poem could be a description of Spender's early life .He suffered the disability of a club foot and a speech impediment. The use of the first person, contrasts, and ambiguity give us a vivid picture of a child troubled by a superiority/inferiority complex. 

 While his parents are condescending towards the rough coarse children, the child appears envious of their carefree liberty, their unbridled animal prowess and uninhibited playfulness, yet resentful of their bullying behaviour to him.   

We can visualise the narrator’s voice through antithesis.  He is everything that they are not; softly spoken “words like stones”, well dressed “torn clothes”, “rags”, passive “they ran and climbed”,  inhibited - modesty “they stripped by country streams”, weak “muscles of iron”, well mannered “salt coarse pointing” lisp (parodied by copying), clumsy “lithe”, and friendly ( hostile- “they never smiled”). 

His attempts at conciliation and acceptance are refused but he appears to blame his parents for psychologically damaging him by over protection or shielding him from a natural childhood.  While their superior attitude has excluded him from mainstream society he undecidedly identifies with his parents by having the boys spring “like dogs to bark at our world”.

In conclusion the author leaves us with the idea of an ambiguous blame with the reader trying to find who has more blame, the child or his parents. But in fact the boy is too young to have account of his own thoughts, he just follows what his parents say. 

Byron - so we'll go no more

“So we’ll go no more a roving” is a poem composed by Lord Byron in 1817. The poem is formed by three quatrains, with continual rhymes which follow the pattern ABAB. At the age of twenty-nine he wrote a letter to his friend Moore in which he included the poem. He wrote: “Though I did not dissipate overmuch… yet I find the sword wearing out the scabbard, though I have but just turned the corner of 29.”
The first stanza is characterised by the word “SO”, which begins the whole poem. The choice of this word is particularly effective as it seems more to introduce a conclusive statement, and not a beginning. This emphasises the fact that he has accepted the end of his young age, and that he is ready to start a new, and more tranquil life. On the other hand, the last two lines of this stanza are contradictory. “The heart be still as loving” and the use of the word “moon”, both express the meaning that party spirit is still bright in his body, and although his heart is still young and wants to party, his body cannot yet sustain it.
In the second stanza he writes the love he had for parties and having fun. The first and the second line are particularly striking as they use a very strong image to describe the actual conditions of his body: “sword outwears its sheath” and “soul wears out his breast”. The image created by the sword entering his body is intended to emphasise the fact that him, and his soul, want to party, but the body do not permit it anymore. In addition to this image, a much more calm one is added in the last two lines: “heart must pause” and “love itself have a rest”. What he is saying is that his heart has to rest and his conclusion is to listen to it.
The first stanza, which represents the real conclusion of the poet, stands out for its melancholy and sadness. The poet is resigned and reluctant towards the idea of stopping with the parties. The words “Yet” and “no more”, are well-chosen as it emphasises the poet’s melancholy. The phrase “go no more a-roving” also makes clear the fact that there will be no more parties and fun. A clear connection can also be noticed between the last line of both stanzas one and three, as they both take the moon as subject.
Lord Byron achieved in creating a striking tone of melancholy and sadness, through his detailed choice of words and phrases which emphasise meanings and ideas, about his life without parties.

Lament link

http://englishlanguageliterature.com/2011/02/17/lament-by-gillian-clarke/

good discussion on this poem

Report to Wordsworth

The poem Report to Wordsworth by Boey Kim Cheng is particularly effective in conveying the human destruction and the deterioration of planet Earth. Cheng imagines writing a letter to Wordsworth an English poet, nature sensitive who grew up in a rural area constantly in contact with nature. In fact, most of his themes were related to the relationship man/nature. To make the poem effective, Cheng uses a variety of poetic devices.
Boey Kim Cheng refers directly to Wordsworth: “You should be here, Nature has need of you”. The “you” could also be referred to the reader. Nature is described with a capital N, this adds importance as only proper noun are written with a capital letter. This creates in the reader’s mind a more humanitarian and spiritual image of nature. It is almost as if nature has been personified and brought to life. The effect is of a creation of a link between the reader and Nature which will develop through the poem; this also gives the possibility of using words normally related to human.
Immediately, nature is described as oppressed and ruined: “she has been laid waste. Smothered by the smog.” This personification of nature shows the importance of nature for the poet and introduces the harmful actions of man towards the natural environment. Through personification again, Cheng describes the “the flowers are mute and the birds are few in the sky” referring to the loss of beauty and of musicality in the surrounding world meaning something has changed. The deaths of the birds are compared to a dying clock: “slowing like a dying clock”. The clock symbolises how the time that passed can’t be retained. The effect is of a drastic ending to nature and the reader will be more and more concerned because as more time passes, we get closer and closer to the end.
In lines 5-6 there is a positive-negative contrast, the poet refers to the Greek sea-god Proteus who lost all this hopes “all hopes of Proteus rising from the sea have sunk” because “he is entombed in the waste”. The word “entombed” refers to natural destruction and suggests he is hidden in the waste of the sea by the excess of pollution and contamination. This terrible image adds to the sympathy than the reader has in regards of Nature. Referents to ancient Greek Gods continue with: “Triton’s notes struggle to be free”. Triton, God’s messenger used to play a horn, however the dirt and waste is such dense and thick that the notes can’t get out. This metaphor is effective in creating meaning and tragedy as music is poetically linked to a positive aspect of life; by destroying music, symbol for life, man is destroying everything which is good in our world. In fact, his horns are:”chocked and his eyes dazed”. This shows how he is totally paralyzed by the waste.
The most significant image of this poem is the one referred to Neptune: “and Neptune lies helpless as a beached whale”. It is significant because Neptune is the King of the Seas and so if he is forced on his knees by human pollution, all hopes vanish. With his death comes the end of a reign. The comparison with a whale accentuates what previously said. A whale is a docile animal and people have huge sympathy for it. The death of a whale brings sadness and this highlights the atrocities caused by pollution. The insatiable hunger of man for killing is showed with “while insatiate man moves in for the kill”. This causes the reader to see man as cruel identity.
Approaching the end of the poem, Boey Kim Cheng is making clear how all hopes are gone: “poetry and pity have begun to fail”. Poetry and Pity, religion, have been for centuries the only way to educate people and if they fail, all humanity is condemned to self-destruction.
The Ozone layer is for Cheng a big issue, “O see the wound in the sky”. The image of the Ozone whole like a wound creates in the reader’s mind a sense pity.
The last phrase refers to the The Great Flood in the Bible. “God is laboring to utter his last cry”. The cry symbolises the Flood. Human destruction reached such a high extension that God is preparing for the ultimate decision to restart a new world. The reader might feel scare but at the same time aware that if he doesn’t start to help humanity, our destiny would be a one path way to destruction.

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