poems of the decade

Eat me

Metaphor for domestic abuse and parasite like relationships in general, the man is eventually killed

Strict structure suggesting strict imposing by the man

Assonant rhyming scheme, uncomfortable

Fantastical imagery and matter of fact tone

woman is both objectified and luxurised

Slow pace, full stops in the middle of sentences

Chainsaw vs the pampas grass

Stanzas are discreet without encampment, irregular, giving a sense of opposition and feud

Masculine sounding language and personification vs feminine inverse

Masculinity in this case being ephemeral and performative

Conversational informal language portraying inherent silliness

Man vs nature, where nature persists

Bourgeoisie vs industrial class

Genetics

Villanelle form lending itself to a poem about separation and togetherness - going apart and coming together like strands of DNA

Repeated lines showing desperation to comfort one’s self

Religious imagery elevating her parents relationship and her own role in a unsettling manner

Poem becoming increasingly more unsettling

Cyclical nature shows inevitability

To my nine year old self

Positions herself below the child immediately “you’ll have to forgive me”

Enjambment, memories coming to her as she is speaking seemingly, with

Crisp, grounding finish to each stanza perhaps showing her adult sensibility or the memories fading away

clear distinction between child her and adult her using I and U

Uses we when referring to the “few shared years”

Ultimately leaves the child to be happy and returns present

Physical fitness and enthusiasm contrasted to her adult self

Guiseppe

• Uneven stanzas, two simile at the end of stanza two forms forms dramatic climax

• Flat, unobtrusive tone tone, simple language, at contrast with surreal description and shows how brutal and inhumane acts can be normalised

• Protective, using words like ‘certain others’, Guiseppe being in denial

Effects

Is a elegy as it focuses on death and loss, elegiac

Grieving both husband and mother, regretful tone due to tense relationship

Like previous elegies is a conversation between grief and celebration, and a conversation between different positions (in this poem middle class and aspirational vs working class)

Structural lurching from closeness to distance, caused by occasional rhyme

two sentences and piling of clauses creates tension and shows overwhelming thought

The gun

Does bringing the gun into the house change the gun or the house ? - is the man able to hold power over the gun or vice versa

Transformation from being a person with a gun, to having the gun imprint itself on the person and becoming a King of Death

Violence exciting the owner like sex

Emjambent and abrupt stops creates choppy uneasy rhythm,

Flat tone and everyday language until the final stanza

Furthest distance I have travelled

• Extended metaphor of travelling a round the world to describe immaturely navigating adult life and relationships, though she also travels round the world, realising by the end of the poem

• Only some have rhymes suggesting on.y some stability and structure to early life

Ode to a Grayson Perry urn

• consinotly rhymed to Gradient urn, has a similar structure, original structure intended to exhude elegance, though the poem focuses an working class subculture who would be frowned upon- though Keats was a lower class himself and frowned upon by the elites

• Unclear wether the speaker is supportive or not of this culture, or Perrys work, the readers opinion in this likely informed by their own bias

  • Grayson Perry says he writes about “prejudices, fashions and foibles”f

  • Meta commentary on how art is viewed if it’s old, how older times are glorified

Look we have coming to Dover

• Seen in parallel to Dover beach

  Sounds which are reminiscent of old English poetry, alliteration concentrated✅

• Sibilants suggests sounds of the sea✅

• Gobfuls of surly formed - suggesting racist abuse, characterising the cliffs and sea themselves as being racist

Diesel breeze- something that is unwanted in the natural environment, like immigrants ✅

• Goes on to look at long term existence of the immigrants, mocking anti immigrant rhetoric

The deliverer

• The deliverer could refer to many different people in relation to the baby, has biblical connotations, being delivered from guilt and sim

• Strict triple tercel structure potentially alludes to the speaker being constrained, holding back information or feeling, or not having fully discovered themselves

• Highlights difference between ‘moral’ Americans who live sheltered lives and the impoverished Indians who abandon babies that would be a financial burden. The children are described like burdens