Poems of the Decade Flashcards

Question

Leisure Centre is also a temple of learning: Other Poetic Features

Answer 1

Tonal Shift: comes in the last three lines which are blunt in their warning about what happens next. Supported through the fact every line is end-stopped + stark in its effect

Answer 2

Dating of the poem sets the context: set in the immediate aftermath of the attacks on the Twin Towers in NY in 2001. This event, History with a capital H, casts its shadow over the whole poem Poem suggests that paying attention to the worlds transience + beauty might act as a kind of antidote to the hatreds that create ideologically motivated violence

Answer 3

The War Correspondent: focussed on specific dates The Fox in the National Museum of Wales: touches on similar themes however clear contrasting tone

Answer 4

Setting: beach is significant as seen as a reflective place + poised between land + sea Tensions between the human + natural world as well as pessimism + hope

Answer 5

Stanzas enjambed + lines scattered: shows the broken up thoughts of the narrator + the narrators confusion conveyed through the fragmented nature of the poem Structural shift: after the initial description + the word "stone"

Answer 6

By juxtaposing two different conflicts 60 years apart, Carson makes a point about the worlds ongoing addiction to war Emphasises the underlying pointlessness of the sacrifice at the battles

Answer 7

History: both about an event and moment in time and the implications of it

Answer 8

Through the title evident that poem from the eyes of a reporter: suggests reporter watching + narrating the war therefore detailed description of the war Uses the senses: series of smells, places people, clothing, sound + unpleasant imagery to convey the true nature of wars Juxtaposes imagery of nature + military associations throughout

Answer 9

Gallipoli: narrative voice not established till the very last line suggesting battle is beyond words as it is so horrific

Answer 10

Mentions a lot of places: in order to suggest and convey to the reader how the battle affected many people Emphasises the senses for the reader to feel part of the setting and gage what it really feels like as the reporter Creates the place: demonstrates the diverse cultures

Answer 11

Symbolises girls stage in her life Poem about halfway between child + adulthood Finding yourself

Answer 12

To My Nine Year Old Self: looks at youth from an older perspective The Furthest Distance I've travelled: looks at youth from an older perspective however employ a more personal voice in comparison with tender detachment in an easy passage

Answer 13

References to light + colour to describe the girls: help to convey both their delicate physical presence + the fragility of this particular moment in time

Answer 14

Anecdote: universal application

Answer 15

Family bonds Women who display such apparent heartlessness towards their girl babies are seen, in the final part, to be at the mercy of society which privileges male children suggesting women are victims too Women trapped by cultural and economic pressure

Answer 16

Giuseppe: due to the complex exploration of guilt and its use of stripped down language

Answer 17

Lack of figurative or descriptive language contributes to a flatness of tone, expressive of the bleakness of the situation Single syllable verbs: thud through the lines with a brutal emphasis on the physical Language enforces a kind of numbness: as the women go through the terrible motions of sex + birth

Answer 18

Use of short sequence form: enables poet to explore the situation from different perspectives. perhaps also suggests, in its shift of time and place, both the invisible global connections linking the developed and developing world, and the fracturing of family relationships

Answer 19

Memories Contrast from childhood and adulthood

Answer 20

Repetition of injury - juxtaposition with need to resist injury Semantic field of childlike traits Semantic field of adventure due to energetic verbs Field of maturity - contrast of nine year old self Envious tone

Answer 21

Opens with second person pronouns: highlights gap between adult + child No fixed stanzas: conversational + spontaneous

Answer 22

Questions used to connect to younger self No rhyme as it would make it artificial not honest Shift in mood: separating child + adult Enjambment used - creates a sense of movement

Answer 23

How the speaker copes with a serious illness Dwell on social acceptability of being seriously ill Concern about how we speak truthfully in the face of life's most difficult moments

Answer 24

An Easy Passage - due to the theme of concerns

Answer 25

Metaphor of the stage + the narrators minor role within a play is used to explore ideas of social pretence: in the face of serious illness, the narrator carries on acting

Answer 26

Irregular structure may illustrate the changes experienced throughout life

Answer 27

Narrator somewhat saying that women feel obligated to comply with the males aggressiveness + illustrates through the voice how women conform to these gender roles

Answer 28

Chainsaw vs. The Pampas Grass Eat Me

Answer 29

Gender Roles clearly an essential element to the play

Answer 30

Stanza lengths irregular Caesuras used to insinuate emphasis on particular words (this technique mainly used in the 4th stanza) Setting: domestic house, juxtaposition of setting immediately in opening Use of enjambment to leave emphasis on words + to increase the pace of the poem

Answer 31

Adult reflection on youthful aspirations Freedom vs. (self impose) constraints Possibilities not taken: regret vs. acceptance Transience of relationships

Answer 32

Cliches of backpacking Geographical imagery Domesticity Sex and romance

Answer 33

First person viewpoint, including listing Past tense shifting to present Contrast and bathos Attention drawn to forced/half rhymes - possibly illustrating failure

Answer 34

Explores the darkest corners of human behaviour

Answer 35

Lots of parallels to events in Nazi Germany suggesting in times of war people do terrible things Narrative tone holds guilt as significantly sombre + matter of fact Mermaid symbolises outcasts + minority groups in society Final word "God" suggests God gets the final word as in desperation people turn to God in need. Also implies that poem highlights inhumanity + going against religious views as God is an omniscient presence

Answer 36

Bag personified: narrator clearly believes the doctor brings the babies in his bag

Answer 37

Finishes with a direct quotation from the mother illustrating her selfishness as she is putting the emphasis on the doctor - lots of colloquial language to represent the mother. Also as mother has the final word conveys how she is the most important person in the narrators life. Bag Personified = threatening nature

Answer 38

Part 4 has a cyclical structure as it returns to the mothers room - demonstrating how birth + death are a constant cycle

Answer 39

About affect husband had on her About human relationships Poem on inner reflection of his relationship with his mother

Answer 40

Form: dramatic monologue Lots of enjambment: creates fast pace to the poem

Answer 41

Flow of consciousness - portrays his feelings + makes it credible + moving

Answer 42

Cultures represented within museum range across the world. In doing so, the poem suggests, that a single nationality never exists in isolation but is always connected in complex ways to the outside world

Answer 43

Religious imagery Comparisons portrayed through art

Answer 44

Narrowing of stanzas represents how humanity has become narrow minded First person narrative - not established till the opening of the third stanza

Answer 45

Final line "the iron doors" suggests a dark conclusion: iron doors closed on history. Could represent how the once powerful civilisations mentioned in the poem are long gone, as dead as the proverbial dodo referenced in stanza 5. Also illustrates how the past inevitably links to the future.

Answer 46

About parents but about spoken relationship Identity + genetics

Answer 47

Narrator unites them "fingers link to palms" Image of child playing creates metaphoric image of their love through marriage

Answer 48

Villanelle Stanzas are tercet apart from the final stanza which is a quotron

Answer 49

A rhyme = masculine rhyme B rhyme = feminine rhyme

Answer 50

Looking for the meaning of life

Answer 51

Alliteration used to put emphasis of them leaving the job

Answer 52

Caesuras create a reflective + contemplative tone Narrative structures the poem - tells a story Linear narrative Written in free verse Regular 4 line stanzas

Answer 53

Enjambment creates an emphasis of space + is a depiction of the narrators thought process and reflection

Answer 54

Immigration Language in the poem reflects the dialect + vocabulary of a multi-racial language of English Title is grammatically in correct suggesting owns or possess

Answer 55

Full stop at the end of every stanza except for the last stanza Regular stanza lengths

Answer 56

Miners' strike major influence over the poem

Answer 57

Water imagery throughout - creates image of revival Political imagery Reference to contrast in class - irony as brought down by the establishment

Answer 58

Tercet - as each stanza has 3 lines Free form = free verse Enjambment flows throughout: symbolic of the flow of the river styx - linking the living + dead

Answer 59

Title refers to passionate poem who defended minorities May link to myth of Greek underworld

Answer 60

Disempowerment - lack of control Humans vs femininity Lack of meaningful communication/barrenness of language

Answer 61

Facelessness Irony Paradox Cultural allusions (Mozart)

Answer 62

Unbroken in to stanzas: overwhelming

Answer 63

Interweaving of (four) multiple voices Anaphora (Repeated opening "And) Present tense, with vision of (unchanged) future

Answer 64

Exotic language Unconventional - challenges cultural gender stereotypes

Answer 65

Tercet - all stanzas consist of 3 lines, regularly suggests trapped by stereotypes however she chooses to break those boundaries

Answer 66

Poem about strength in numbers - about changing the world Themes of movement

Answer 67

Poem written for a political activist

Answer 68

In the 4th stanza the fulcrum takes place - the moment the poem shifts

Answer 69

Rhyme at certain stages of the poem

Answer 70

Reflective poem About narrators mums blindness Loss

Answer 71

A minor role - dealing with illness

Answer 72

Diction informal + colloquial which creates greater empathy with his personal feeling Uses humour as a defence mechanism Conversational tone due to colloquial language Similes illustrate narrators morbid humour as makes a joke about a serious matters Personification - represents what the narrator has lost

Answer 73

Couplet - each stanza consists of 2 lines Enjambment and caesuras put emphasis on certain words

Answer 74

Final line is single - could represent how they are now separated Title is an inner textual reference to Milton - connect with famous poet Milton as he went blind

Answer 75

Class divisions

Answer 76

Informal language such as "hello" Sounds used such as "screech" and "squeals" Slang used such as "buff" and "geezer"

Answer 77

Form = ode - poetry about art

Answer 78

Direct reference to another poem by John Keats Long lines enable an accumulation of detail Slight rhyme in the final stanza

Answer 79

Marked by our own past, by our origins Restlessness: reflects the woman's attempts to escape her past Inescapable nature of the past

Answer 80

Chainsaw vs the Pampas Grass: both illustrate how social expectations are experienced differently by men + women

Answer 81

Use of similes to convey narrators emotions

Answer 82

Stanza length: 10 lines in each suggests narrator can't break away from her past as shown by the regularity

Answer 83

Prevalence of lists given the poem a fast tempo, as does the predominantly anapaestic rhyme Irregular rhyme + half rhyme

Answer 84

May be referring to his wife + the hireling who had an affair

Answer 85

Repetition of light throughout

Answer 86

Regular stanza lengths make it appear like a series of stages in a story Shifts after caesura in the line of the last stanza - tonal shift

Answer 87

Simile used suggests can't control emotions + neglect