21st century poetry

#fFrefc0e9

Eat Me

Chainsaw vs the Pampass Grass

Material

History

An Easy Passage

The Deliverer

The Lammas Hireling

To My Nine Year Old Self

A Minor Role: context + themes + title

Title = unassuming → not entirely clear of what the poem will cover

• Illness + identity

• Social performance

• Helplessness

• Stoicism

• Society + illness + death

A Minor Role: form

Free verse

• Five stanzas of varying lengths → easy-going + conversational effect despite the deep themes

• Perhaps reflects speaker’s desire for difficult conversations to be less ‘formal’

• Light hearted → speaker’s dedication to “sustaining the background music of civility”

Line at end→ “I am here to make you believe in life.”

• Emphasis → lone line + at end = leaves the reader dwelling on this point

• Indictive that the speaker wants the reader to take this from the poem

No fixed meter → conversational tone

• Reflects the speakers wish for everyday monotonous life to coexist with deep emotions

No set rhyme scheme

• Structured rhyme scheme can feel ornamental + flashy

• Reflects speaker’s focus on staying out the spotlight

A Minor Role: language + imagery + poetic devices

Extended metaphor

• Compares speaker to an actor performing a supporting role

• Returns to the metaphor repeatedly → using theatre oriented language to depict complexities of living with an illness

• “waiting room roles” + “consultants’ monologues”

Repeated use of imperatives → “Cancel things; pretend all’s well,/Admit it’s not.”

• Monotonous acts

• Reflects how you must perform when having an illness → exposes why the speaker desires a ‘minor’ role over one in the spotlight

Humorous irony → “For a simpler illness, like a broken leg.”

• Absurd idea → almost humorous

• Reflects speaker’s struggle with identity + illness

Juxtaposition → “It would have been better to die. No it wouldn’t!”

• Abrupt shift → staking own autonomy over the decision

• Reference to Oedipus Rex tragic chorus → not accepting the chorus’ suggestion

• Quite contradictory for a supporting role to object to the chorus → highlights significance of speaker’s claim

Listing

• Second stanzas’ listing of acts = emphasises how when you are ill life is reduced to these things → identity is lost

• “Tears, torpor, boredom, lassitude, yearnings” → all of similar meanings = emphasise the depth of her sorrow

The Gun

The Furthest Distances I’ve Travelled: title + context + themes

Title = use of pronoun ‘I’ve’ → indicates personal tone of poem + double meaning of poem → distances travelled literally + figuratively

• Identity

• Physical vs emotional experiences

• Memory + reflection

• Connection

The Furthest Distances I’ve Travelled: form

Eight quatrains

• Consistent stanza structure → adds some consistency to poem

Free verse → no fixed meter

• Footloose → like speaker in younger days

Half rhyme scheme → AABB

• Straightforward → however some are slanted rhyme

• Makes poem’s musicality more subtle → conversational + colloquial + folksy tone

• Not fulfilling → reflects lack of clear resolution

Mixture of structured + free aspects in poems form

• Mirrors the speaker has moved from a chaotic life with no boundaries → present toned down life

Enjambment → one line is half a word = “anony/mity”

• Reflects the flow of memories through both past + present

• Flow of time

• Surprising form → mirrors unpredictability of speaker’s travels ~ “beaten track… between Krakow/and Zagreb”

  • Speaker is surprised despite all her travelling that human connection may cause you to experience more

Caesura → “I thought: Yes. This is how/to live”

• Suggests speaker’s youthful conviction → while allowing older self to question it retrospectively

• Gentle emphatic mocking of her naive young self → that travelling is the sole way to live

The Furthest Distances I’ve Travelled: language + imagery + poetic devices

Geographical metaphor → “saddled a rucksack… the way my spine/curved under it like a meridian”

• Immediate travelling connotations in first stanza → emphasises travelling aspect

• Sensory aspect → amplifies the love the speaker has for travelling

Listing → “beaten track, the sherpa pass… Siberian white cells” + “cinema stubs, the throwaway/comment…tiny stowaway/pressed flower”

• List of travel experiences + destinations → emphasises the physical experiences she has done + gained

• List of sentimental items → random + insignificant → however speaker comments she knows “these are her souvenirs”

• Contrasting lists → allows reader to weigh up which are more important

Contrasting imagery emphasised by structure → “catching a greyhound from Madison to Milwaukee/than to be doing some overdue laundry”

• Images of spontaneous travel vs mundane every day tasks

• Breaking up over a stanza → amplifies the contrast between the two

• Emphasises lack of identity speaker feels due to lack of exciting travel

Tonal change → beginning youthful certainty vs ending mature reflection

• “Yes. This is how/to live” vs “the furthest distances I've travelled / have been those between people.”

• Speaker redefines what constitutes a fulfilled life

• Geographical exploration → emotional complexity of human relationships

• Caesura vs enjambement → certainty to reflective

Giuseppe

Out of the Bag

Effects

Genetics

From the Journal of a Disappointed Man

Look We Have Coming to Dover!

Please Hold

On Her Blindness: title + context + themes

• Title = adaption of John Milton’s sonnet “On His Blindness” → initial chafe with condition after complete loss of sight + resolve to bear loss patiently

• Born in Paris

• Stoicism + suffering

• Loss + pain + helplessness

On Her Blindness: form

22 couplets + sole line at end

• Short even stanzas = feel measured + restrained → creates feeling speaker is holding feelings back like how the mother did

Free verse → no rhyme scheme + no fixed meter

• Gives speaker’s voice quiet + everyday conversational tone = personal

• As if the speaker is confiding in the reader

Single buried rhyme at the end → “pretend… in the end”

• Subtle hint that speaker hopes it may be resolved → auditory resolve to poem = reflects speaker’s uncertain hope for resolve

Enjambment → couplets flow into one another whilst line lengths are visually the same

• Allows for poem to remain in an even + meticulous shape → may reflect how the speaker’s mother moved through the world ~ deliberately + steadily

• May be a means for speaker to continue smoothing an easy path for his mother even though she is gone

On Her Blindness: language + imagery + poetic devices

Simile → “who bear it/like a Roman”

• Reference to Milton’s focus on stoic withstanding of blindness → “serve those who stand and wait”

• Reflects how people expect no struggle to be shown + only talk about vulnerabilities stoically or positively

• Also nice how the simile can be understood without sensory connotations

Tonal juxtaposition → “kept her dignity… bumping into walls like a dodgem”

• Slightly darkly satirical

• Mirrors the speaker’s feeling of incompetence when handling situations with his mother

Rich imagery → “golden weather” + “ablaze with colour” + “the ground royal with leaf fall”

• Only real visually evocative imagery present at end → same point when mother is dying

• Slightly ironic → really emphasises the helplessness of both mother and speaker

Personal references → “restaurant in Paris” + “Adam”

• Adds to the personal feel of poem → emphasises the misery

Plosive alliteration → “bear being blind”

• Harsh sounds → like how speaker’s mother despised being blind

• Straight away creates sense of discomfort for reader = reflects how beginning illustrates mother’s struggles + loathing

Use of speech → “It’s living hell, to be honest Adam./If I gave up hope of a cure, I’d bump/myself off.”

• Emphasises the personal + conversational tone of poem → lets reader into speaker’s emotions + experiences

Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn