poetry topic sentences

The City Planners- facade of perfection

1. Creates an unsettling facade of perfection of the suburbs

2. Imperfections become more adamant (literal and metaphoric cracks)

3. Portrays the incompetence of the City Planners

The Planners- removing culture destroys the artist

1. Unstoppable desire for perfection

2. Uses extended metaphor of dentistry to criticise the Planners

3. poet frustrated with the destruction of culture

The Man with Night Sweat- sexual liberation, illness, guilt and shame

1. Loneliness and isolation is portrayed

2. how his body has been affected

3. How he recognises himself now and how much he's changed

Night Sweats - writers block

1. How his writing consumes him

2. description of his actual night sweats

3. haunting thoughts of childhood and life

4. how his wife relieves him of this mental anguish

Rain - acceptance of death

1. solitude and isolation

2. recurring motifs of rain as death

3. the acceptance of death

The Spirit is Too Blunt an Instrument -intricate details of human life

1. The overwhelming wonder of the human body

2. mechanical nature

3. human emotion ruins the physical creation

From Long Distance - not wanting to accept death

1. How the dad kept the image of the mother alive, and how he is in denial

2. Portrays the dad's emotions about the mum dying

3. How the speaker reacts about both his parents dying

4. warmth of language juxtaposes grief, supporting the father and comforting him

Funeral Blues - wanting everyone to feel the pain he feels

1. He wants the world to recognise his mourning

2. How much he meant to him

3. His whole world is ending, using expansive imagery

He Never Expected Much- dissatisfaction of life

1. Portrays his view of life as a child, wondering if life would be fair

2. How some love life and some hate it which foreshadows his neutral view at the end

3. Portrays his view on life as an old man as he decides on middle ground

The Telephone Call - the experience > financial gain, dissatisfaction of life

1. Manipulative nature of the caller

2. Portrays the speaker trying to wrap her head around it, in disbelief

3. Portrays the realisation the speaker has been tricked

A Consumer's Report - dissatisfaction of life, overview of life

1. general dissatisfaction

2. complications and difficulties

3. overall review about how life should be simplified

Request to a Year - female experience, family, overcoming societal restraints 

1. respect over attitude, and achievements

2. what she achieved despite her restrictions

3. she can finally be seen as the artist by her GGgrandaughter

On Finding a Small Fly Crushed in a Book - death, legacy, inevitability of death

1. Conveys the sense of regret and guilt at discovering the fly

2. Conveys the mesmerising beauty of fly

3. How he contemplates the transience of human life, and the meaninglessness of death

Ozymandias - life, power, important, poetry survives longer than power

1. Conveys the passing of time / transience of life

2. Portrays what Ozymandias would have been like when he was alive

3. Portrays what his statue and power are like now

Away Melancholy - celebration of perseverance

1. Uses natural imagery in order to convey the beautiful simplicity of life

2. How the poet uses the idea of worship and god to convey the goodness in life

3. Mans perseverance