Owen sheers typicality

Features of Sheer's style- techniques

-often in free verse
-tercets-favorite form-good for capturing image
-quatrains used for narrative
-shape of poem on the page has sig. i.e. trees
-reusing forms i.e. Marking Time-sonnet and the haiku in Calendar
-shows interest in love poems, narratives, elegies
-juxtapositions and contrasts within poems and within the collection as a whole
-the personal juxtaposed with the wider world
-powerful conclusions-significant thoughts, uplifting ideas and raises questions
-dialogue/speech-immediacy, evokes a powerful sense of then individual or creates a character
-rhyme used to made ideas and statements more emphatic
-uses metaphor and motifs-birds,horse,water
-self conscious awareness of other art forms- four movements , night windows (Edward Hopper), Shadow Man, Happy Accidents
-epigraph-self conscious awareness of outside influences

Key concerns in Skirrid Hill

Moments of separation
Family, inheritance, elegies within nature context
Significance of the landscape, Wales
Welsh identity and identity in general
War and conflict
Strangeness of the wider world, outside Wales
Inheritance, sense of individual as part of a wider pattern
Masculinity and cruel aspects of it
Love, passion, romance, sex, beginnings and endings
Growing up, youth into adulthood
distances between the male figure and lover
Borders- physical, metaphorical (between youth and adolescence), emotional boundaries
Performance
The hill- Skirrid Fawr
Language and communication
Ambiguity- appearance and reality

Poems that show show /performance

Last Act
Show
The Equation
Intermission
Four Movements in the Scale of Two
Amazon

Poems that show separtion

Valentine
Winter Swans
Night Windows
Keyways
Four movements
Border Country
Farther

Poems that show love

the farrier
marking time
show
valentine
winter swans
night windows
keyways
four movements

Poems that show masculinity / make relation to

hedge school
drinking with hitler
Joseph Jones
late spring
the equation

Poems that show Welsh identity/identity

last act
mametz wood
the farrier
border country
farther
joseph jones
late spring
Y gaer
the hill fort
the steelwork
amazon
skirrid fawr
inheritance

Poems that show nature

the farrier
winter swans
border country
farther
trees
hedge school
late spring
the equation
Y gaer
the hill fort
skirrid fawr

Poems that show father and son relationship

inheritance
border country
father
trees
y gaer
the hill fort

Poems that show family

inheritance
border country
farther
trees
late spring
the equation
on going
y gaer
the hill fort

Poems that show childhood/youth

border country
trees
hedge sh cool
joseph jones
late spring

poems that show death

mametz wood
border country
on going
y gaer
the hill fort
amazon
under superstition mountain

Poems that show age/ generational divides

mametz wood
border country
farther
trees
late spring
under superstition mountain

Last Act

• First poem/ subverts expectations
• Poems are his honesty
• "taken so long,"- not his first poem
• "missing teeth,"- imperfections of childhood
• "mouthing o" Stammer, Late Spring
• "isn't this always the last act," there are always questions being asked
• "curtain,"- revealing the truth
• Reference to a Show/ façade
• "bowing as himself,"- not a character/ honesty

Mametz wood

• Battle of the Somme aftermath- Welsh division WW1, 1960
• Triplets= odd and too short like their short life/ unnatural
• "Tended the land back into itself," the countryside's trying to recover from the brutality of the war/ humans "foreign body to the surface,"
• Emotional distance created with "relic of a finger," makes them seem like artefacts, "mosaic of bone."
• Nature vs. human evil: "nesting machine guns,"
• Waste of life "paused," "boots outlasted them."
• Harsh "f"
• Delicate descriptions, "China plate"
• Violence described by nature, "birds egg of a skull"
• Earth personified "sentinel" and keeps watch, as if nature cannot predict bathe brutality of humanity
• "Arm in arm" brotherly. Comradeship, died together
• "skeletons paused" cut off too young
• "Boots outlasted them" subverts expectation as you assume there boots would die before them.
• "Unearthing" cyclical idea of life after death; nature etc.
• "Absent tongue" literally decayed and also had no choice or voice
• Link to: Happy Accident/ Liable To Floods

The Farrier

• Horse shoe maker, destruction of nature...
• "blessing himself" religious ref
• "Apron" = manual labour
• "rain beaten day"= chaos of weather
• "leather" = nature but also humanity's destruction/betrayal of it
• Enjambment after "waits" draws out the scene/slows it down/ shows care and relaxed attitude farrier has to his work
• "Smoke slow turning" = assonance, adds to the relaxed and peaceful tone, olfactory imagery "she smells"
• Pathetic fallacy of "wind twisting,"
• Battle between man and nature in a more caring way
• "Woodbine, metal and hoof" genuine masculinity as oppose to Joseph Jones.
• He's careful not to scare her or look her "in the eye"
• "checking" he's careful and caring towards her and he's skilled
• "Knackered car" modern vs. old, Border Country nature compared to the cynical world of industry, has industry beaten nature??
• "a romantic lead dropping to the lips of a lover," compares love of a couple to the love of an animal, pleasant and caring towards the animal, animals/nature = woman, "pinning the dress of a bride"
•"Excavating" Mametz Wood
•"branding on a shoe" = ownership of man over nature
•"apparition" ghost/ mystery/ superstition
•"seamstress" = professionally skilled
•"gives her and slap and then she leaves" could be perceived as misogynistic, is it just violence towards nature or towards women as well
•"new shoes" = look good for men, Show
•Last line alone= nature doesn't need man kind and could flourish alone? Or could be that alone we are odd and need both to balance?
•"her heels" internal rhyme = the sound of her heels hitting the ground
•"steel"- equilibrium between nature and industry

Inheritance

• Women = beauty, men = destruction
• (RS Thomas = welsh poet national ID)
• 1st stanza = father: Short sentences, less emotive, emph brisk speech of stammer- seems to be a weakness, Love of nature over manmade, Order and chaos juxtapose mother, Emph the inconsistencies he receives from parents, aware of inconsistencies of life from Father
• 2nd = mother: Longer sentences, "joiners lathe," something mundane that, for him, is turned into something beautiful, "fable," creativity, real life into a story,
• Smooth flowing sound juxtaposes the "st" from stammer- sibilant
• Last stanza = both: need both their traits to make their family work, harmony in unity, emph in the last sentence
• "years hard hammer," toils of marriage and industry vs. nature- nature normally wins
• "red hot," fierce/ passion
• 7 sentences in 1st 2 stanzas = odd. 6 in last = even = completeness and even together

Marking Time

• Mark on her back = branding/ownership
• Fricative sound of 'f' draws out sentence, emphasises the length of time it's been that a scars "fading" = long relationship.
• Lust is personified- like they can't control their passion, emph in "floor instead."
• "Where we worked up that scar," approximant= created together- rather than a baby it's a scar.
• Although its "together" she's the one who sufferers
• National pride= "tattered flags," ship imagery of "spines mast" (women + Sea/Ships!) juxtaposes the gracefulness + strength of a ship with its vulnerability. Repeated idea with "still waters."
• "Brand burnt,"= ownership/hurt humans inflict. Intimacy of "back" repeated body part throughout anthology.
• World of man compared to world of nature + humans destruction of it "lovers who carve trees," "equalled by an arrow," finally balance but pain was not balanced as she was hurt and he was not= unequal.
• "But never leaves," relationships don't always work but that doesn't erase the past, emotional and physical scars.
• Women and nature: she's the ocean and ship
• "Loving scar remains," love they felt still remains = emotional scars they leave upon one another + physical he leaves upon her. Unlike keyways where she "lowers" to him.

Show

• Role playing/insincerity- pressure on women/ objectification
• (part 1) "Model"- mute/no emotion/ultimate pressure of female beauty.
• Nature= "curlews," long beaked birds. "High heeled," patriarchal oppression.
• Assonance= all you hear is shoes and camera clicks
• "Spectators,"- women= entertainment.
• Irony of "tennis match," being repetitive- its skilled/strong unlike the models
• "Flex," "featherless," birds: colloquial/derogatory. Emph by fricative long 'f.' They are on display
• 3 lines to 2 lines. Men= predators "crocodile pit," prey on the women/ morally base, "teeth," destructive.
• (part 2) "Mirror," symbol of patriarchal oppression on women.
• Skilful role such as a "pianist," "artist," juxtaposes idea of them being unskilled.
• Perhaps it's all a façade
• "Paint,"= artificial, now sympathetic?
• Sheer's seems to reject the artificial "scene," "pulling the door to,"?
• Enjambment of "once more..." moment of pause and emphasises impact she's had on him
• Thinks of sex immediately "the fell of her dress,"- artificial/costume.
• "Dusk of your skin," cliché of stars and jewellery. It's all a cliché and meaningless, surrender battle between men and women
• "Artful hocus pocus," fake magic- chauvinism compared with equation.
• "Bore" attention. "out of focus" ultimately she leaves him breathless
• Even lines of 4.
• Tight rhymes Inc down poem= show the forced/fake nature of her looks, he doesn't like it?

Valentine

• Reminiscent of an argument "water torture"- psychological like love
• Violence/emotionally manipulative
• Humans/evil cruelty
• Repetition of "drips"= walking off
• "heels" Show, Farrier
• They are losing love and "emptying their hearts"
• "Paris"= city of love
• "channels of our hearts" reordering their lives and love
• This juxtaposes the idea that they weren't in love anyway or expected to fall out of love
• Deliberate interruption in the poem "that will be one memory"- disjointed
• "skirt and hip"- alluring
• "wet lashes"- crying/ emotional pain, perhaps trickery
• We move away from sexually charged and towards an unhappy honesty- veneers gone
• "wrecked voyagers"- injured/charged/desperate
• Their relationship= a shipwreck and they cling onto one another
• Ship/ocean = women
• "washed up" survived but also 'done for' tired
• Two triplets without interruption= the pair return to one another
• Physically together but emotionally distant= 4MITSO2
• Interrupts triplets to show it has not worked
• "keeps" hell remember the closeness they had after
• Cynical view of love as survivalist and co-dependant
• Calls back to image of "flag on a mast" from Marking Time

Winter Swans

• Baron/cold/white/nature/birds...
• Sense of distance "clouds had given their all," unforgiving violence of weather
• "we walked"- united, "water logged"- full
• Personification of nature and weather "gulping for breath" the relationship is struggling to survive, depressing realisation
• Repetition of "s"- assonance long sound emphasises the distance between the two of them
• "until" indicates the change in tone, more optimistic/uplifting
• Swans = love and viciousness
• "Show" acting/faced, reference to Show the poem and its fakery
• "rolling weight" the weights shifted in their relationship, strength
• "dark waters," hard/dangerous/cold
• "halved themselves" idea of only whole when together
• Recovery, "boats"= strength
• Internal rhyme of "weather", "feather"
• The rough weather of their relationship
• "righting"- relationship has fixed and is returning to normal
• "they mate for life," parallel between humans and animals, allows for them to model their behaviour on that of the birds- they return just like their hands
• "afternoon light"- emphasises change from dark and cloudy, enjambment emphasises moment of change within relationship and pathetic fallacy
• "slow stopping"- emphasises the change in relationship and realisation they have come upon
• "swum the distance between us" less distance= now connected like swans/birds
• "settling" less chaos now than after the turbulence of the "flight"= calm
• Even number of lines in last stanza = now united

Night Windows

• Darkness/light contrasting
•Poem reminiscent "that night," there's been a change
•This sets the atmosphere, cinematic and intimate
• "we could see," realization, see clearly, passionate
• "they"= audience, describes them as activists creating something/fakery, "impressionists"
• "thin white drapes"= can't see clearly
• "lowered yourself onto me"- dynamic shift as female dominates him, unlike Keyways
• "distant landscape,"- emotional distance/nationalism/nature and women
• "valleyed" woman and Wales
• "august heat" opposite to Winter Swans= passage of time, august= mating season
• "bow," love= caught him, violence/ strength
• The enjambment makes it long, slow and drawn out, reflects their love making
• "invisible," reinforcing the idea that they cannot see clearly, looks at all her body
• "side-swipe," literally closing curtains but also insulting him
• "went dark," it's over now
• "Siren" attracts men to their doom/trickery; she's out of his league?
• emotional distance "far away yet near"
• "sigh" satisfaction/finish
• "lit hallway" juxtaposes the darkness this has happened in, secrecy/covert/ashamed, now light = better judgement
• "dress of your shadow" feminine/ personification
• Left only a shadow= a lack of intimacy/ not satisfied/ he was distracted/ she needs to leave
• Unnatural to mate without emotion= like animals

Key Ways

• Triplets -> quatrains -> quintrains: like a slowing down/ approaching an end
•Begins media res. Starts and ends in same line
• "our,"- unity, personal pronoun different next line where it is just "your key,"
•"that mine again," possessive, emotional distance
•Sense of claustrophobia with heat "presses,"
•"Uncut," not yet gone through changes, emotional...
• "edentate," animals with smooth teeth/ animals/ nature and industry/ keys/ enjambment= leaves on impression of them unchanged before the emotional pain
• They've yet to go through changes that struggle and shape them "milling and grooves,"
• Enjambment after "breaths," emphasises the long drawn out breathes of them together, reinforces intimacy they shared which is juxtaposed later on with the distance and adds pathos for inevitable end
• "Siamese twins sharing one lung,"- hurt each other/ rely on each other but also can't be free and are ultimately killing each other
• "combinations matched,"- matched on the outside, perhaps not deep down
• "slept facing away from me,"- emotional distance now, juxtaposes earlier intimacy
• "bow and arrow," dominant/ violence/ winners and losers in relationships
• "when did the bolt slip,"- questioning the problems within their relationship, wonder what went wrong, doubting relationship, alliteration of 'b,' violence of "in mouth,"
• "failed to dock,"- rough journeys, sea/ boats/ women and the sea
• "expected click,"- even if key fits on surface deep down they don't
• Repetition of "strange then," circular structure adds pathos from start
• Abrupt end with only 2 lines, like the premature end to their relationship
• All manmade things ultimately break
• Draws a relationship between people and man-made objects, contrasts the usual relationships drawn between people and nature