2024 poetry Flashcards
Emigree : “There once was a ___________ … I left …”
“There once was a country … I left as a child”
ellipses = past tense, unreliability ?, fairy tail like,
unreliability ?
or to reminisce
ambiguity of country = apply universally for all
refugees
Emigree : “The worst news i receive of it cannot break …”
“The worst news i receive of it cannot break my original view, the bright filled paper weight”
metaphor = not allow memories to be tarnished oxymoron between lightness of ‘paper’ and the heaviness and depth of her memories.
semantic field of sun ‘bright’ = blinded by sun, or
power of places
Emigree : “Time rolls its tanks and frontiers rise …”
“Time rolls its tanks and frontiers rise between us, close like waves.”
personification time = time has conquered the
reality of this memory
or to symbolise the powerful
regime
‘frontiers’ = barriers between experience of refugee
+ english readers
schism further extended by simile = representative
of english
channel that
denies a new
life for many.
Or england drowning identity
Emigree : “I comb its hair and…”
“I comb its hair and love its shining eyes”
personification = deliberate idealism
‘shining’ = with joy or with tears, duality of pain with
memories
Emigree : “They accuse me of absence. They circle me. They …”
“They accuse me of absence. They circle me. They accuse me of being dark in their free city.
repetition plural pronoun = outnumbered/ outsider
or menacing and
threatening
power of three = extent of persecution
personification = likens them to predators
‘dark’ = contrasts with white, racism ? + evil
Remains : “Three of a kind, all letting fly and I swear/
next stanza : change to italics “I see …”
“Three of a kind, all letting fly and I swear/
next stanza : change to italics “I see every round as it rips through his life - I see broad daylight on the other side”
change in tone from accusatory to guilty
hyperbolic metaphor ‘rips’ = harshness,
‘through’ = brutality, wider implications ? everything about life affected.
or life is fragile like paper = objectifies looter
hyperbole ‘light’ on other side = hope that he’s
hoping to feel
better,
or victim go to heaven ?
colloquial verb phrase ‘letting fly’ = fun and freedom
Remains : “Tosses his guts …”
“Tosses his guts back into his body”
possessive pronoun = admitting involvement
callous description = realises what a callous action
or he thinks it is okay. Or a
spokesperson for others who
feel guilt for unjustifiable
actions
verb ‘tosses’ = objectification
colloquial lang = everyday event
Remains : “And the drinks and the drugs won’t flush him out”
“And the drinks and the drugs won’t flush him out”
equating actions to excrement
metaphor ‘flush’ = shows whish to be cleansed of
guilt, but ‘flush’ a continuous
cycle of everyday life that will
keep repeating.
sibilance = unsettling tone, sinister actions ?, sound
of fear ?
alliteration ‘d’ = remorse and regret
Remains : “But near to the knuckle, here and now, …”
“But near to the knuckle, here and now, his bloody life in my bloody hands”
‘bloody’ = pun, violence ?, or frustration, swearing it
has ruined his life
possessive pronoun + ‘bloody’ = symbolic of guilt
plosive alliteration = endless remorse he will feel ?
or brutality of event
parallelism = abuse of power when shot looter and
current inescapable feelings of guilt
Remains : “But on …”
“But on another occasion”
in media res = confusion soldier faces, not
emotionally ready for what will come
determiner ‘another’ = romanticizes notion of
conflict
Exposure : “Our brains ache, in the …”
“Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knive us …”
hyperbole ‘brains ache’ = physical pain +
Psychological pain , cold
weather infiltrating very
anatomy
personification = nature is intentionally threatening
inclusive pronoun = universal nature of suffering,
unity?
ellipses = elongated (slow) sense of time antithesis
of expectations on war. Anticipation?
sibilance = cold wind? treacherous nature?
Exposure : “Watching, we hear the …”
“Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire”
semantic field sensory imagery = soldiers high alert, ‘watching’ = helpless + passive
verb ‘tugging’ = juxtaposes helplessness of soldiers
showing strength of nature
personification ‘mad’ = nature mad + unpredictable
alliteration ‘w’ = quivering cements misery, also
motif of ‘w’ for the rhetorical questions throughout, questioning purpose ? disorientation ?
Exposure : “We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and …”
“We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stromy”
Power of three = monotony + repetitive nature of
soldier’s experiences.
pathetic fallacy = reinforcing depression
sibilance = recreates silence, weather threatening ?
metaphor ‘sag’ = heaviness, soldiers carrying
burden
Exposure : “Pale flakes with fingering stealth …”
“Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces”
personification
adj ‘pale’ = imagery of death
fricative alliteration = shivering?, cruelness of
weather ?
Exposure : At the “burying party” “All their eyes …”
“All their eyes are ice”
oxymoron ‘burying party’ = sad that he didn’t die,
romanticizes notion of
death in conflict
metaphor = depicts deaths from hypothermia, or
referring to soldiers collecting dead
showing desensitisation to death, eyes
have been frozen with the experience o
of war ?
London : “Near where the charter’d Thames …”
“Near where the charter’d Thames does flow”
repetition ‘charter’d’ = fixed/ regulated, speaker
resents confinement
juxtaposition nature and confinement = even nature
London : “Mark in every face I meet, marks …”
“Mark in every face I meet, marks of weakness, marks of woe”
verb ‘mark’ = anguish is visible
hyperbole ‘every’ = magnitude of misery
‘mark’ then used as noun = metaphor for a brand,
branded with this look
to show place in society
alliteration ‘w’ = connects poverty and sadness
imagery uncontrollable sobbing
question words all begin with ‘w’,
reference to speaker’s confusion
with what has happened.
London : “The mind forg’d …”
“The mind forg’d manacles I hear”
metaphor = people have no autonomy
weakness is only in your mind, calling
for a revolution ?
alliteration ‘m’ = greed of those in power
hunger of the people ?
