Poem Summaries and Themes Flashcards
Summary of ‘Genetics’ by Sinead Morrissey:
A poem about the interconnectedness of family and the next generation - speaker talks about how she is proof of her parent’s love, although they are now separated. The poem has a Villanelle structure.
Themes: family, relationships, love.
Summary of ‘Effects’ by Alan Jenkins:
An elegiac poem about the loss of the speaker’s mother and the guilt he feels over his treatment of her, lamenting over what he has left of her, uses imagery and free verse (stream of consciousness structure)
Themes: loss, family, relationships, regret, guilt.
Summary of ‘Material’ by Ros Barber:
A poem that uses the motif of a hanky to reflect on the loss of her mother, childhood memory and nostalgia. The poem uses regular stanzas, potentially to reflect the simplicity of childhood. She eventually decides to parent her own way, as her mother would have wanted.
Themes: guilt, womanhood, memory, family, loss, gender restrictions/expectations, distance.
Summary of ‘On Her Blindness’ by Adam Thorpe:
A found poem that alludes to Milton’s sonnet (On His Blindness), referring to his mother’s blindness and her refusal to accept her disability, until she eventually dies. The poem uses elegiac couplets until the end, where a single-line stanza is used, and is full of pretence/illusion.
Themes: acceptance/denial, family, relationships, loss, memory, childhood/adulthood, power of art.
Summary of ‘History’ by John Burnside:
A poem that alludes to 9/11 with a loose iambic pentameter, with a fragmented structure to perhaps represent the poet’s scattered thoughts. The poem begins with the speaker playing with his son on the beach - an almost liminal space - discovering signs of life, reflecting over how small things can be important to humans. He almost becomes overwhelmed by the uncertainty of life and all the terrible things that happen, and his helplessness in stopping it, but, at the end of the poem, he learns to accept these.
Themes: uncertainty, human connection, innocence, humanity.
Summary of ‘Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn’ by Tim Turnbull:
This poem, a found poem in the form of an english ode, references Keat’s ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’, perhaps intertwining high culture and popular culture. The vase shows an image of children living their youth: making ruckus (without the danger), driving fast cars, etc, whilst being too naive to realise the danger that they are in. The vase then shows more girls and boys standing on the sidelines, and the police come - but quiet is “for the rich”
Turnbull ends the poem by telling the vase that in 1000 years, people in the future will look at it and remember how happy young people used to be.
Themes: rich v poor, relationships, love, childhood.
Summary of ‘The Furthest Distances I’ve Travelled’ by Flynn:
A poem that uses quatrains and represents an emotional journey (both literal and metaphorical journey), dealing with change and the expectations of life turning out differently from reality. There is an implication that the speaker went on a gap year, and has discovered that life’s pleasures consist of connections with others, however fleeting they are, rather than material possessions. The poem also has a fragmented structure; perhaps representative of her expectations of life breaking down, as the structure becomes much more consistent at the end.
Themes = relationships, love, change, expectations, experience.
Summary of ‘To My Nine Year Old Self’ by Dunmore:
A poem lamenting the loss of the speaker’s youth, almost having an epistolary form where she speaks to her younger self, telling her about the burdens of adulthood and almost having a bitter tone. The poem ends with the speaker leaving her nine year old self to enjoy childhood.
Themes: dreams, childhood, change, loss, youth, bitterness/anger, naivety, adulthood.
Summary of ‘Eat Me’ by Agbabi:
The poem has a structure of tercets, and acts as a dramatic monologue towards the speaker’s partner, who fetishises her body and weight. The poem could be read in a number of ways: attitudes to beauty, colonial power, ageing, consumerism/greed, etc. It could also be an extended metaphor for abusive/toxic relationships.
Themes: love, relationships, ageing, consumerism/greed?, toxicity, gender, sexuality.
Summary of ‘An Easy Passage’ by Copus:
A free verse narrative poem that describes a girl trying to get into her house after (most likely) spending time on the beach, she tries and struggles to enter - an adult watches from across the road, describes the things around her as she tries to enter. A long, dense structure.
Themes: childhood, friendship, adulthood, transition, freedom, leisure.
Summary of ‘The Lammas Hireling’ by Duhig:
Structured as a confession; dramatic monologue; narrative poem.
The poem is deliberately ambiguous, describing a man who hires a worker to look after his cattle after his wife died. In the night, he hears her screams and finds the worker outside naked (after transforming from a white hare into human). He shoots the worker and carries him to the bridge and throws him into the river. He then goes to a church to confess to a friar. It has hints of homosexuality and takes inspiration from folk tales.
Themes: men, women, relationships, guilt, the taboo, folklore, witchcraft.
Summary of ‘The Gun by Vicki Feaver:
A poem with irregular stanzas where the speaker describes how her partner? brought a gun into their house. At first, she opposed it, then started practicing with it, then started killing animals with it and cooking them with her partner, becoming complicit in the deaths of these creatures/submitting to the gun’s power.
Themes: morality, change, perversion, violence, death/murder, relationships, power.
Summary of ‘Giuseppe’ by Ford:
A narrative poem of magical realism, which blends the reality of WW2 and the myth of sirens/mermaids. The speaker describes how his uncle fought in Sicily, and the troops were starving until they found a mermaid on the shore. They justified killing her by saying “she was only a fish”, yet had a priest come so the mermaid could (potentially) confess her sins. The mermaid is perhaps an extended metaphor for how we justify evil.
Themes: guilt, murder, loss, realism, morality, religion, power.
Summary of ‘From the Journal of a Disappointed Man’ by Motion:
The found poem, taken from Berbellion’s book (originally in prose), is written in an almost epistolary form. He has chosen to hold the speaker’s perspective, emphasising the isolation of the speaker rather than the focal point being the workers. The poem describes the speaker’s observation of a group of construction workers who encounter a problem whilst building. They give up on solving it and abandon the job, leaving the speaker isolated watching the “pile”, perhaps demonstrating how real life does not always tie up the loose ends that we want.
Themes: manhood, relationships, loneliness, isolation.
Summary of ‘A Minor Role’ by Fanthorpe:
The speaker, a nurse, describes what life is like dealing with patients in a hospital in a poem which uses irregular stanzas. She describes the monotony of her job, as well as how she takes care of them, takes on their emotional pain, etc, concluding with her communicating how important her role is, even if it may be viewed as “minor” - “I am here to make you believe in life”
Themes: loss, pressure, pretence, illusion, taking care of others, etc.
Summary of ‘Chainsaw versus the Pampas Grass’ by Armitage:
A free verse, irregular, narrative poem which creates a power imbalance of nature v humanity. The speaker describes how he lets the chainsaw loose, using it to cut the pampas grass and describing its bloodlust. However, it turns out that every time the chainsaw cuts the grass, it grows back, and the poem ends with the chainsaw’s frustration.
Themes: nature, dominance, power, violence, resilience, perseverance.
Summary of ‘Please Hold’ by O’Driscoll:
A poem that acts as a diatribe, lamenting over the loss of human connection as a result of the technology that has emerged from modernity. The speaker highlights the monotony and lack of interactivity of his interaction with a customer service robot, using the overlapping of voices: him, his wife, the robot (and his consciousness?), to highlight the artificiality of human interaction nowadays. The poem ends with a separate tercet - potentially mimics a robot malfunctioning/desperation of wanting to change the “future”
Themes: relationships with others, interactions, hope, love, care/concern
Summary of ‘Look, We Have Coming to Dover’ by Nagra:
A narrative poem on immigration that uses an epigraph from Arnold’s Dover Beach which is about the loneliness of living in the modern world. This poem aims to highlight the beauty of multiculturalism, where the speaker has travelled to the UK to “invade”; imagining how life will be like when they have settled in the UK. The poem references lots of politics and British culture, potentially as a critique.
Themes: immigration, the blending of people and cultures, relationships, hope, dehumanisation, etc.
Summary of ‘The Deliverer’ by Doshi:
A poem that deals with infanticide in India, where female babies are abandoned due to misogyny and patriarchal values. The speaker, a child of the lady who delivers babies from India to the US for couples who wish to adopt, describes how babies are abandoned and then loved by new parents in the US, and deals with the complex nature of patriarchy in non-Western countries.
Themes: murder/death, relationships, love, women/men, religion.
Summary of ‘Out of the Bag’ by Heaney:
‘Out of the Bag’, an almost autobiographical poem, explores the speaker’s childhood, specifically his memories of visiting the doctor. The speaker believes that he literally assembles newborn babies in his workshop - adding to the element of childhood innocence demonstrated in the poem. Heaney also explores his pilgrimages to Lourdes and Epidaurus, but keeps returning to his childhood bedroom. The poem ends with his mother’s words, almost acting as a homage towards her and how she raised her son.
Themes: memory, childhood, adulthood, naivety, exploration, returning to roots, education.
