Poems KF Flashcards
Blessing
Form - Free Verse (Water is free)
Structure
1. Stanzas vary in length (length linked to amount of water, wave like)
2. Full stops (Fewer full stops in second half, water flows)
Language
1. Semantic field of religion (“god”,”congregation”,”blessing”; high levels of religion in poor countries + power of water)
2. Sibilance (rush of water)
Half past Two
Form - Free verse (free of constraints of time)
Structure
1. Closed structure (restraint of time)
2. Enjambment and caesura break this up late in poem (freedom)
Language
1. Compound words(“Gettinguptime”,”Grantime”)
2. Personification
Piano
Form - Free verse
Structure
1. Rhyming couplets (Music and harmony)
2. Volta between past and present (Stark change)
Language
1. Semantic field of music
2. Negative lexis related to the present
Hide and Seek
Form - Free verse
Structure
1. Rhyming couplets mark important lines
2. Single stanza (flow of time, excitement carries forward)
Language
1. Language becomes more sinister through
Sonnet 116
Form - Sonnet
Structure
1. Describes what love isnt first, then what it is
2. Shakespearean sonnet: 3 quatrains, Rhyming couplet
Language
1. Ship metaphor - love is a journey
2. Personal language (shakespeare himself is the speaker)
La Belle Dame sans Merci
Form - Ballad
Structure
1. Use of stereotypes e,g a knight (Either love can destroy anyone, or he’s ridiculing the idea of romance)
2. Iambic pentatmeter but each line too short (Heroic but romance is cut off)
Language
1. Semantic field of weakness (Love makes someone weak)
2. Flowers - Lilies for innocence, Roses for romance but also martyrdom
Poem at Thiry Nine
Form -Free Verse
Structure
1. Short stanzas (shortness of time with father)
2. Long stanza 2 to show long work time
Language
1. Cooking language (“Seasoning” as a metaphor for adventure)
2. “Staring into the fire” - unafraid of confrontation and hope
War Photographer
Form - Free Verse (closed form)
Structure
1. Regular form (Cyclical nature of war, attempt to impose order in chaos)
2. Ends with the cycle repeating (unending)
Language
1. Semantic field of religion (Reverance of the dead)
2. References (to Napalm bomb photo and Isiah 40:6)
The Tyger
Form - Free Verse
Structure
1. Trochaic Tetrameter (Chanting, spiritual feel)
2. Reference to Paradise Lost
Language
1. “Water’d heaven with their tears” - (Suffering but neccessary, Songs of Innocence and Experience)
2. Tools used are from industrial revolution but also blacksmith (ancient and new)
My Last Duchess
Form - Dramatic monologue (Duke controls narrative: power)
Structure
1. Her painting is reflective of her objectification
2. End moving on so quickly shows unimportance
Language
1. Possesive language (My, mine, etc.)
If
Form - Free verse
Structure:
1. Audience (“my son”) and goal only adressed at end so it is universal and action comes first
2. Repetitive structure emphasises how complicated it is to be a man
Language:
1. Semantic field of traditional masculinity/stoicism
2. Dramatic metaphors to emphasise points throughout
Prayer before birth
Form - Dramatic monologue (Obviously symbolic)
Structure:
1. Incantation (like a prayer)
2. 1st and last line of stanzas rhyme
Language:
1. Harsh language/no euphemism to shock (kill me, blood baths etc.)
2. Stanzas move to right as if drifitng away like hope
Search for my tongue
Form - Free verse
Structure:
1. Middle stanza in Gujarati to show her daily experience + dreaming in Gujarati
2. Direct adress in line 1 is accusing (like halfe-caste)
Language:
1. Metonym of “tongue” taken literally
2. Extended metaphor of Flower makes “mother tongue” seem natural and inevitable
Half-Caste
Form - Free Verse
Structure:
1. Volta at “buy yu must come back tommorrow” reverses message to show Europeans are “half”
2. 2nd Stanza, all the good things that come from mixes (reclaiming) , 3rd stanza, ridicules idea of half people
Language:
1. Written in creol, shows pride of heritage and language
2. Aporia, pretended lack of knowledge to prove a point
3. Direct adress makes it confrontational + assumed audience
Do not go gentle into that good night
Form - Villanelle
Structure:
1. Iambic pentatmeter that is broken by “rage,rage” line
2. Only mentions it is his father at end, it is universal til then
Language:
1. Imperatives, commanding and shows desperation
2. Continued metaphor/euphemism of “light” and “burn” as life and passion with “night” as death
