In the book, the language used could really strike the reader and truly show the misery they experienced. “The morning was cold and wet. They had not slept during the night, not even for a few moments, and all three of them were feeling the tension as they moved across the field toward the river.” ( O’Brien, p.105) The author uses imagery to show first hand what the soldiers encountered on that wet rainy day.
In “Marching Through a Novel,” by John Updike, Updike conveys a complex relationship between novelist and characters, portraying the author as a god-like figure whose characters are left to his whims and wishes. Updike accomplishes this characterization through his diction, imagery and use of metaphor. Updike conveys this relationship with vivid imagery throughout the poem. His diction, such as “Misty faces,” “unraveling bandages,” “trench warfare,” and “a harsh taskmaster” all create ominous imagery for the reader; the poem also seems to have a dark mood or create a kind of helplessness. The poem seems like the author wants to help his characters described in the poem, but he is unable to for some reason.
Both Ted Hughes and Wilfred Owen present war in their poems “Bayonet Charge” and “Exposure”, respectively, as terrifying experiences, repeatedly mentioning the honest pointlessness of the entire ordeal to enhance the futility of the soldiers' deaths. Hughes’ “Bayonet Charge” focuses on one person's emotional struggle with their actions, displaying the disorientating and dehumanising qualities of war. Owen’s “Exposure”, on the other hand, depicts the impacts of war on the protagonists' nation, displaying the monotonous and unending futility of the situation by depicting the fate of soldiers who perished from hypothermia, exposed to the horrific conditions of open trench warfare before dawn. The use of third-person singular pronouns in “Bayonet
Undocumented by Dan-el Padilla Peralta is a memoir that offers a vivid insight into the experiences of Latino/a/e immigrants in the United States. The book explores two interrelated themes: the author's personal experience as an undocumented immigrant and the broader socio-political context that shapes the lives of undocumented immigrants in the United States. Through these themes, Padilla sheds light on the challenges that undocumented immigrants face, including stereotype threats. One of the themes that run through the book is the experience of living in the shadows as an undocumented immigrant.
Poetry is the literature created from the soul. The idea behind poetry feeds from the emotion and the creativity given by the author. For some, Poetry is understood as the desire for no written rules or room for boundaries. This reflection will present an analysis of the various techniques and interventions which develops a poem. The reflection will also compare and critic the works of Charles Olson (1997) and Jill Jones (2009).
We have seen examples of talented poets who overview the world in a more sensitive way than normal people. My favorite poem by an author that we have encountered this semester is Lucille Clifton’s “The Mississippi River Empties Into The Gulf.” I think this poem is a great example on how poets recognizes features that normal people cannot interpret out. First, Clifton personified a river to have the characteristics of humans. Clifton noted rivers to carry, to empty, and to drag the memories from the past.
In the critical literacy book, Untamed, by Glennon Doyle, a fifty year old woman, realizes how she can enjoy life better and the steps along the way, in Florida with her wife and three kids. As the book begins Glennon sees how her family realized how cheetahs in the zoo miss the wild yet they never knew the wild, Glennon notices this and it feels like her life too. While Glennon notices everything wrong with her life she realizes she wants a change. Glennons life changing started when she was sitting on her bathroom floor with a positive pregnancy test, she says to herself I want to change my life around. She later realized that no matter what she did she was never enough for everyone
As one single poem can intrigue the everyday college student, one can imagine the obsessive nature that one poem can have on the mind. The poem, circulating, round and round in the mind, leaving one to ponder the day away all because one poem, as one can be left questioning, such as in "Prayer" by Galway Kinnell. However, even if someone were to be obsessed with one poem, there are ones who are intrigued by not just one, but two, maybe dozens of poems, all by the same author that had them intrigued since the first poem looming in their head. Nevertheless, as one may ponder across an entire work of a single author, this pondering may lead to one who is passionate about the entire work of an author to publish articles about someone and their work respectively. In the article, "Galway Kinnell: Transfigured Dread," by Edward Hirsch, the pondering over the entire works of Galway Kinnel are discussed in great detail.
Upon first viewing, one will notice how this poem about World War 1 by William Butler Yeates, goes much deeper and requires a much closer analysis to appreciate its full depth. For starters we can see that this poem is not a sonnet, at least not in the strict definition of using fourteen lines. Yeates instead chooses to use sixteen lines in one stanza to get his point across. This will be the first feature to grab the eye’s attention. Along with that observation, we will notice how the rhyming structure is constant throughout (this is important and gives a deeper meaning than just “sounding good”).
Three Messages from The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner (An Analysis of The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell) In Randall Jarrell’s poem The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, he explains the sacrifice a young ball turret gunner shows for his country, and the fear he goes through in the process. Goldman says, “Jarrell tries to resolve the dilemma of a war that turns boys into "murderers" by asserting their sacrificial, Christ-like innocence that is itself a martyrdom for the historical brutality of the state.”
In any given speech, or piece of literature for that matter, there is a certain amount of pathos, logos, and ethos used by the author, a technique that people like to call the “Rhetorical Triangle”. In the thought provoking speech: “Tide of Voices: Why Poetry Matters Now”, the speaker spectacularly uses these tactics to prove the validity, importance, and beauty of poetry. Mark Doty, the author, is a recognized American poet, who was the winner of the National Book Award for Poetry in 2008. This accomplishment on its own establishes ethos, a form of trust and credibility. Obviously, a poet defending poetry is as expected as a mathematician defending mathematics, but still, the reliability and status is there.
Baylie Reisch Katherine Usik ENC 1102 3 February 2023 Text Analysis of the Themes within “How to Write a Poem in a Time of War” In “How to Write a Poem in a Time of War,” Joy Harjo shares a story about a community that is torn apart by the impending war. The story begins by setting the scene as the community realizes that the war has arrived; their worst fears have come true. The soldiers took whatever they wanted and destroyed the rest. Unfortunately, the poem seems to indicate that the people of the region never expected this to happen; there is sort of a state of oblivion in the scene (Harjo lines 25-27).
Firstly within the poems, both Owen and Harrison present the horrific images of war through use of visual imagery. “And leaped of purple spurted his thigh” is stated. Owen describes the immediate action of presenting the truth of war as horrific and terrifying . The phrase “purple spurted” represents the odd color of the blood which was shedded as the boulder from the bomb smashed his leg in a matter of seconds. The readers
A heroic couplet structure within the poem provides a degree of clarity while still asserting the chaos and cruelness of war. Once again, it can be inferred that Owen himself serves as the speaker. However, this time his audience is more focused on young soldiers and families rather than plainly the public in general. In contrast to the previous work, this poem is set primarily in a World War I training camp, signifying the process young soldiers go through prior to deployment to the front line. The tone of this poem is more foreboding and condemnatory, not only describing the training soldiers but outright degrading their forced involvement as morally wrong.
“Report to Wordsworth” by Boey Kim Cheng and “Lament” by Gillian Clarke are the two poems I am exploring in this essay, specifically on how the common theme of human destruction of nature is presented. In “Report to Wordsworth”, Cheng explores the damage of nature caused by humans and man’s reckless attitude towards this. In “Lament”, the idea of the damage of oceans from the Gulf War is explored. In “Report to Wordsworth”, Boey Kim Cheng explores the theme of human destruction of nature as a response to William Wordsworth, an romantic poet who celebrated nature’s beauty in his poetry.
