Poetry 2 Flashcards
Gieuseppe rhyme and scheme
Written in free verse, “Giuseppe” doesn’t use a rhyme scheme—a choice that only makes the poem feel more like a nightmare. The poem’s unadorned, naturalistic language makes it sound as if the speaker is telling a true story. But this conversational tone butts up against images of surreal horror. If Ford had used meter and rhyme here, the obvious artfulness might have given readers a little room to breathe; as it stands, the speaker’s almost ordinary-sounding voice makes the mermaid’s demise feel terribly strange and terribly real at exactly the same time.
Gieuseppe setting
The poem is set in a kind of dream-version of Italy during World War II. More specifically, it takes place at an aquarium in Sicily. This picturesque place “where the bougainvillea grows so well” makes an incongruous setting for a scene of horror. The juxtaposition between Giuseppe’s wistful memories of flowery Sicily and the murder of the mermaid warns that evil can happen in your own backyard, literally and metaphorically.
The specific time period here invites readers to read the poem symbolically. The mermaid’s murderers have to dehumanize her to do what they do. But the poem’s surreal image of the dying mermaid also suggests that about how atrocities happen wherever and whenever they happen. The first step toward murder, the poem suggests, is convincing yourself your victim isn’t a person.
Eat me setting
The poem is set over the course of roughly ten years, starting on the speaker’s 30th birthday and ending when she kills her partner on her 39th birthday. These long years get compressed into a relatively short space, drifting by between lines 13 (“I was his Jacuzzi…”) and 22 (“The day I hit thirty-nine…”). That compression evokes the speaker’s sense that her life has been stolen, eaten up by her abusive partner.
The poem’s physical setting is less specific: all we know is that the speaker and partner share a house. But the speaker doesn’t seem to go far beyond that house, and her world feels claustrophobic: at her lowest point, she feels “too fat” even to go out to the grocery store. The speaker is trapped in an abusive relationship, a stigmatized body, and an unkind world.
Material metre
Much of “Material” is written in iambic tetrameter: lines of four iambs, or poetic feet that follow a clear unstressed-stressed rhythm (da-DUM)
Steady meters are much more common in older poetry, and the use of meter in this contemporary poem might subtly reflect the speaker’s nostalgia for a bygone era. Indeed, the push-and-pull between a regular iambic and freer-sounding accentual verse might echo the tug-of-war going on within the speaker herself, as she lives in the present but longs for the predictability and familiarity of the past.
To my 9 year old self metre
“To My Nine-Year-Old Self” is written in free verse, meaning it does not have any particular meter. The lack of meter suits the form of the poem, which is framed as a dramatic monologue delivered by a speaker to her nine-year-old self. As a dramatic monologue, the language of the poem mimics the natural patterns of everyday speech. Moreover, the lack of structure and rigid metric patterns resonates with the free-spirited and playful nature of the speaker’s younger self.
To my 9 year old self setting
This (presumably re-imagined) childhood world then moves through various settings. The speaker recalls summer mornings in particular, and the act of jumping out of bed. The setting moves through various outdoor scenes as well, with the speaker’s younger self rambunctiously playing in and exploring the natural world.
The specifics of this location, however, are never detailed. This creates a sort of impressionistic vision of the younger self’s world that is in keeping with her childlike viewpoint. The adult speaker focuses on what matters to her younger self—the animals, sweets, and natural wonders that occupy a child’s mind. Fittingly, there are no specific references beyond that—no dates or proper nouns—likely because those are what really matter to a little girl simply enjoying the world.
The Gun setting
“The Gun” takes place in the speaker’s home: as the speaker announces at the very beginning of the poem, “bringing a gun into a house / changes it.” More specifically, the poem centers on the kitchen, since this is where the partner first brings the gun, placing it “on the kitchen table” in a way that feels ominous and vaguely threatening. The gun even casts a “grey shadow / on the green-checked cloth”—an image that juxtaposes the violent power the gun symbolizes and the kitchen’s domestic coziness and safety. Playing with this contrast between danger and comfort, the speaker slowly comes to feel that a “gun brings a house alive,” as if the presence of this weapon has breathed new life into an otherwise sleepy, boring, everyday environment.
Chainsaw v Pampass grass setting
The poem is set in an ordinary suburban backyard. Moments of dialect (calling a garden shed a “summerhouse,” for instance) suggest this yard is in Armitage’s native UK.
In this setting, the pampas grass is both a normal decorative landscape feature and a little bit exotic: it’s not a native plant, but an imported one. Still, it’s made itself at home; placidly deep-rooted, it’s much harder to kill than the speaker anticipates.
The poem’s utterly normal suburban landscape also contrasts with the violent imagery around the chainsaw and its “bloody desire” to buzz right through whatever gets in its way. This juxtaposition between calm neighborhood and terrifying machine hints that the speaker might be just the tiniest bit bored, excited to get the chance to do something noisy and destructive.
The Lammas Hireling setting
“The Lammas Hireling” is set in the past, though it’s not specified exactly when. The emphasis on agricultural labor and folklore and mythology (drawn from British and Irish traditions) suggests that it’s at least as far back as the 18th century, possibly further. Seasonally, it begins after the Lammas fair, which falls on the 1st of August and marks the wheat harvest.
That said, the above elements of the setting only really exist in the poem because they are selected by the speaker himself. Furthermore, the poem makes an important shift in the final stanza, switching to the present tense
An Easy Passage setting
The girl’s house represents the comforts and familiarity of childhood. The fact that she’s crouched “halfway” up the porch, in turn, symbolizes her being halfway between childhood and adulthood. The thrilling dangers of her climb speak to the excitement of adolescence.
Effects setting
The poem has two primary settings: the hospital where the speaker’s mother died, and the family home where she (and the speaker) used to live.
As the mother declines in old age, she is committed to the “psychiatric ward” of a hospital, suggesting that much of her decline is mental.
The speaker also depicts the home where he presumably grew up, and where his mother continued to live until her institutionalization
Beyond its more specific settings, then, the poem paints a broad picture—part affectionate, part critical—of middle-class English culture in the later 20th century.
A Minor Role setting
Initially, “A Minor Role” seems to be set on stage, in a theater. But the poem quickly pulls back the curtain and reveals some very different settings: hospitals, parking lots, The poem doesn’t take place in one particular spot; instead, it travels through a collection of medical settings. These are all sterile, efficient places where the speaker has to work to keep their emotions carefully under control (for example, they hold hands “under” magazines in the waiting rooms, covertly searching for reassurance).
The poem then zooms out, away from these more institutional settings, and gives the reader a glimpse of the street on which the speaker lives.
The final stanza briefly returns to the stage—but only for a moment. As the speaker tosses aside “the spear, / The servant’s tray,” there’s a sense that perhaps the entire set dressing is collapsing. The whole theater metaphor is falling apart! After all, a play is pretend, but the speaker’s battle with illness is not. As the life-and-death stakes of the speaker’s illness come into focus, the theatrical setting seems a little overwrought and ridiculous. The real drama, the real tragedy, is playing out in bland waiting rooms and hospital corridors.
Look we have coming to dover! setting
Dover, a town on England’s south-eastern coast.
By setting the action here, Nagra grounds the poem in the controversial reality of modern-day Dover, which is still a place where many undocumented immigrants secretly arrive.
And in fact, much of the rest of the poem describes the hostility the immigrants face as they try to make lives in the UK. Appropriately enough, the poem never tells readers exactly where the immigrants end up, a choice that gestures to the fearful secrecy of their new lives.
Dover is also the setting of Matthew Arnold’s poem, “Dover Beach,” from which this poem’s epigraph is taken. Arnold’s speaker stands ashore, fearing that the world is shifting away from Christianity—in other words, the world beyond England seems threatening. Here, that perspective is reversed, and England itself takes on a sinister atmosphere.
Genetics setting
The setting of “Genetics” is more about a specific time than a specific place. That is, readers don’t know where the speaker is, but they know when they’re speaking: in the present, as an adult, after their parents have separated. Given the fact that the parents live in “separate hemispheres” and “may sleep with other lovers,” it’s fair to assume that a decent amount of time has passed since this separation. Now, the speaker is gearing up to have children of their own.
Please hold setting
The poem is set in the contemporary world, where people pay bills and accomplish other tasks by communicating with “robot[s]” over the phone. When the speaker is put on hold, the automated call system automatically plays “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik”—an 18th-century classical composition by Mozart. This detail highlights how disconnected people have become; as the speaker waits for a robot to transfer their call, they listen to music from an entirely different era, when people conducted business by actually speaking to other people. (And when people only performed and heard music live, and never had to hear it on an endless loop!)
The speaker clearly feels cut off from the modern world and its impersonal technology—technology that purports to make life easier and provide abundant choices, but really just makes the speaker feel small and obsolete.
