Poetry Flashcards
“Falling in ____ is __________ ____”
You
“Falling in love is glamorous hell”
Oxymoronic - two sides to love
“Falling” - depth of love
“Like a _____ ready to ____”
You
“Like a tiger ready to kill”
Animalistic simile
“Kill” - severity of love
“You ________ in”
“You ________ in my gaze”
You
“You strolled in”
“You sprawled in my gaze”
Elongated verbs - hesitation of the speaker
“Hid… in my __________ rooms”
You
“Hid… in my camouflage rooms”
“Camouflage” - introverted nature: hiding from what love will bring
“There you are… like a ____, like a _________ _____”
You
“There you are… like a gift, like a touchable dream”
Repeated simile; fantastical imagery - a final conclusion
You structure/form
Form of a sonnet - 14 lines
Doesn’t follow an a-b-a-b-c-d-c-d-e-f-e-f-g-g rhyme scheme
Inconsistent line length - inconsistency of love
- Elements of romance
“Love’s _____ ______”
Hour
“Love’s time’s beggar”
Time as the enemy of love
“like ________ on the ground; the _____ light”
Hour
“like treasure on the ground; the Midas light”
Simile: “treasure” - value of love
Allusion to Greek mythology - everything touched turned to gold
“Time _____ love”
Hour
“Time hates love”
Hour structure/form
Shakespearean sonnet
Typical of Duffy’s poetry
Slant rhyme
“_______ of by you all ___”
Rapture
“Thought of by you all day”
Starts with a thought-provoking declarative
“The ______ ____ in the shelter of a _____”
Rapture
“The birds sing in the shelter of a tree”
Classic piece of symbolism - peace
“goes nowhere _________”
Rapture
“goes nowhere endlessly”
Adverb “endlessly” - infinite
Oxymoronic: “nowhere” - lack of hope
“Then ____ comes, like a sudden ______ of _____”
Rapture
“Then love comes, like a sudden flight of birds”
Volta line 10 - significantly between a rhyming couplet “kiss” and “bliss” (opposes simile)
Simile - tranquil side of love
“Huge _____ _______ us”
Rapture
“Huge skies connect us”
Metaphor
“Connect” > link to title - eternity with God
Eternity with partner
Rapture structure/form
Shakespearean sonnet
a-b-a-b-c-d-c-d-e-f-e-f-g-g rhyme scheme
4 lines of enjambment
“Your _____ will be _______ things”
Elegy
“Your bones will be brittle things”
Delicacy of physical romance
“_________ fits the _____ of my ____”
Elegy
“perfectly fits the scoop of my palm”
Well-suited relationship (adverb)
“___ you with a _____”
Elegy
“lit you with a flame”
Past tense
Takes patience to keep something lit - flames do not last forever
“press their ______ to the _____ of your _____”
Elegy
“press their thumbs to the scars of your dates”
Suggestion of physical distance/separation
Metaphor for the death of love
“till I ________ your ____, your ________ grace?”
Elegy
“till I mirrored your pose, your infinite grace?”
Interrogative - leaves readers with curiosity; perhaps linked somehow to how we question what happens after death
Endlessness - pre-modifier “infinite”
Well-suited “mirrored”
Elegy structure/form
Not a sonnet - atypical of Duffy’s love poetry
You/your used 15 times - speaker has specific listener in mind
“wearing my ____ of _____”
Betrothal
“wearing my gown of stone”
Metaphor - willing to devote themselves to a lack of freedom
Feminist remark
Ophelia allusion
“I’ll wear your ____, your ____”
Betrothal
“I’ll wear your ring, your ring”
Repetition/refrain
Devotion to marriage
“I’ll be ___ in a ___, for you to _______ my ____”
Betrothal
“I’ll be ash in a jar, for you to scatter my life”
Metaphor for lost self/literal promise of dying for love
Lack of freedom
Betrothal structure/form
Atypical of Duffy’s romance poetry
Not a sonnet
Structural parallelism
Set out as wedding vows
“October’s ______ adore the ____… whirl to their own _____”
Love
“October’s leaves adore the wind… whirl to their own death”
Juxtaposed
Love is like what wind is to an Autumn leaf - Duffy commonly pairs perfectly-fitted imagery together to mirror love
Leads to turbulent nature of love
“Not ____, you’re __________”
Love
“Not here, you’re everywhere”
Oxymoron - infliction
Even when not physically present, their name is in everything
“The _______ sky”
Love
“The evening sky”
Given it’s own line
Romance conventions - engagement with the piece
In different cultures, a colourful, evening sky represents the end of something - but are equally as beautiful
Love structure/form
Resembles a sonnet
Doesn’t follow sonnet rhyme scheme
Use of enjambment - continuation
“I ____ the dying year ______ me like a _____ and let it ____”
New Year
“I drop the dying year behind me like a shawl and let it fall”
Simile - falling out of love/in love/into fresh resolutions alone?
Internal rhyme - is the speaker so used to falling in love that the skill of discussing it comes naturally
“The ______ fireworks _____ themselves against the _____”
New Year
“The urgent fireworks fling themselves against the night”
Personification - desperate urge for reunion
“Most ___, most ____”
New Year
“Most far, most near”
Oxymoronic - metaphorically close but physically far
Suggestion of distance causing outburst of emotion
“fields and _________ and _____, the _______ lit-up little _____”
New Year
“Fields and motorways and towns, the million lit-up little homes”
Triplet - confirmation of physical division?
“Home” - source of comfort ironically splitting an even greater source of comfort
“Your _____ is ____ now on my ____”
New Year
“Your mouth is snow now on my lips”
Metaphor - warmth of the bond has disappeared, even if the contact is still there
Change
New Year structure/form
Not a sonnet
Three stanzas, each with 5 lines
Line length - 12-16 syllables per line (getting more comfortable)
“That _____ we have of turning ____ to ____”
Wintering
“That trick we have of turning love to pain”
Bitterness of love repeating (“again”: hence position)
Wrongful and cyclical direction - reflected by seasonal change
“The _____ begin their ____”
Wintering
“The stars begin their lies”
“Stars” - celestial imagery
Trying to navigate the core of the relationship as the stars would navigate
“Lies” abstract noun - opposes trust
“Your _____… play inside my ____ like ______ ______”
Wintering
“Your words… play inside my head like broken chords”
Lack of harmony and fluidity in the relationship
The power and harm of ones voice
“The ____ ______ at the house, bitter, ________”
Wintering
“The wind screams at the house, bitter, betrayed”
Metaphor, onomatopoeia, pathetic fallacy; plosives
Heavy use of techniques used by Duffy to show depth of frustration
“Screams” - release of emotion
“____ turns back _____ to ____”
Wintering
“Pain turns back again to love”
Continuous cycle of bittersweet romance
Wintering structure/form
Not a sonnet
Change in tone
1st and 3rd lines rhyme
“your head a ____ ______ hissing _____”
Answer
“your head a wild Medusa hissing flame”
Greek mythology allusion
“your” - anaphora (obsessiveness)
“flame” - 1 of 4 main elements expressing depth of love
“your arms a _________ ________ me around”
Answer
“your arms a whirlpool spinning me around”
“whirlpool” - symbol of turmoil, chaos, and danger.
Another discussion of an element
“spinning” - uncontrollable
“If you were ____ of these, but really _____”
Answer
“If you were none of these, but really death”
Solidifies the ‘death do us part’ imagery
The peace of nature can never compare to the depth of love within a chaotic romance
Answer structure/form
Not a sonnet
Rhythm variations
Elements of half rhyme “chest”/”flesh” - imperfections of love
“________, blackened, ________ to ash”
Write
“reddened, blackened, whitened to ash”
Colour symbolism
Experiencing intensities of heat
“The _____ held me _____ in its ____”
Write
“The river that held me close in its arms”
Personification
Source of comfort - cooling effect as a result of the sun
“I _______ in belief”
Write
“I drowned in belief”
Juxtaposed ideas
Struggle, but still a sense of hope
“the _____ like a mob of _____”
Write
“the stars like a mob of light”
Celestial imagery; simile
“light” - common motif in the collection
Navigation
Write structure/form
Free verse - no set rhyme
No specific metrical pattern
Not a sonnet
“Your ____, unwrapped, my _____ hands made _____”
Grief
“Your gift, unwrapped, my empty hands made heavy”
Irony; juxtaposition “empty”, “heavy”
Weight of loneliness
Unconventional pairing of gift-giving with grieving
“My ____ stare ______ now”
Grief
“My eyes stare inward now”
Searching in their soul for the love once felt?
Reflection of intense emptiness
“My ____, my ____”
Grief
“My star, my star”
Repetition of celestial imagery
Personalisation: light to darkness
“learning, ________; __________.”
Grief
“learning, learning; understood.”
Triplet - process of realisation and acceptance
Grief structure/form
One stanza
Resemblance of a sonnet
Number of semi-colons: continuation
“slipped on the _____ of the ____ I ___”
Ithaca
“slipped on the dress of the girl I was”
Child-like & care free recognition of the past
“_______ your skin, your ____”
Ithaca
“Tracing your skin, your hair”
Roaming for leftover footprints of love
“ripening their _____ in our ____ ______”
Ithaca
“ripening their tears in our pale fields”
Metaphor - loss of vibrancy (“pale”)
Greenery of love is gone
“__________ of your ____, which I _______”
Ithaca
“fragrances of your name, which I chanted”
Traces of memory
Intense need to rid of distance
“________ my small _____ boat”
Ithaca
“dragging my small white boat”
“dragging” sense of struggle, but still a will for continuation
“white” - colour symbolism of purity
Ithaca structure/form
Equal stanza structure
Not a sonnet
“Not ______ my ____ to the ______”
Epiphany
“Not close my eyes to the light”
The brilliance of their significant other is blinding and cannot be blocked out
“hours with the ____”
Epiphany
“hours with the dead”
Life without love is not a life worth living
“a _____ gone out yet _______, gold, ___.”
Epiphany
“a light gone out yet burning, gold, red.”
Juxtaposed “gone out” - “burning gold”
Craving every moment left
Passion is there even when the core is gone
Colour symbolism: “gold” - value, “red” - passion
Epiphany structure/form
Resembles a sonnet - 14 lines
Echoes of romance
No steady rhythm - lack of continuity
“Till ____ ________ itself”
The Love Poem
“Till love exhausts itself”
Description of the long, tiring journey love has been on (position)
“love’s _____ fading, ________, black as ___ on a ____”
The Love Poem
“love’s light fading, darkening, black as ink on a page”
Process of love coming to a depressing, abrupt end
Light mirrors the lover
“there is a ______ in her ____”
The Love Poem
“there is a garden in her face”
“garden” - literary heritage symbolism of life, beauty, and healing
“the ______ of the ____ for the ____”
The Love Poem
“the desire of the moth for the star”
Attraction to light (symbolic of the lover throughout the collection)
The Love Poem structure/form
3 stanzas broken up with a large amount of punctuation
Messiness to the structure - reflection of the relationship? Speaker can’t organise thoughts
Not a sonnet
“No _____ in this _____ sky, no ____ to speak of”
Over
“No stars in this black sky, no moon to speak of”
Celestial imagery - typically light in a night sky. The pairing has been torn apart
Focus of love has disappeared
“the ______ of love?”
Over
“the death of love?”
Finally establishes the reason for sombre tones
Interrogative - hesitation and self-infliction/confusion
“_______ with light”
Over
“flushing with light”
Volta
Light is reintroduced - position might suggest this is just the memory/a new experience bringing joy
“I hear a ____ begin its ____”
Over
“I hear a bird begin its song”
Classic piece of symbolism
Cliche romance element
Peace and acceptance?
“a ____, the blush of ______”
Over
“a gift, the blush of memory”
The memories left are seen as an element of joy and appreciation
Over structure/form
Not a sonnet - end of relationship
Grouping of poems from the collection - memories of experience
