My Poetry thoughts
By robert Barnes
“Slough” by Sir John Betjeman
The poem can be found here: http://www-cdr.stanford.edu/intuition/Slough.html I believe that I can honestly say I have never read a poem such as this one before. That is not saying I did not enjoy reading it, but it was a new style that I had never experienced before. This poem contrasts highly against most that I have read throughout this year because there is no focus on biblical references or talk of the beauty of the world or of human ambition, but rather, Betjeman calls for the destruction of a place where destruction of the worldly beauties has already been wrought by the people that live there. I enjoyed this poem on multiple levels, because it not only drew my attention to the natural beauty of the world around me, but it also made me think about the stagnation of the world around us that we so frequently shut our eyes to. This poem truly helps to awaken that curiosity and wonder that we all posses which allows us to look at the world and see nature for the glorious thing that it is. The first two stanzas are a call from the speaker to the bombs of war, asking them to destroy Slough because it is not a place where people should live anymore. He asks them to destroy the town that has become trapped and manufactured and fake. He then asks them to “mess up the mess they call a town” that has been brought to its knees for twenty year. The poem proceeds with his request to kill the man that has abused the town and poisoned it with his evil ways, a disgusting man who has abused his power and gained wealth off the pain and suffering of the townsfolk, especially those of the women's lives that he has ruined. However, he changed his tone and asked the bombs to spare those who have never known any better, the bald men who have been forced to work for the evil man and find their only solace in the place called Maidenhead, an assumed tavern and whorehouse. He asks for them to be spared because they have experienced Hell, but they have only ever known it, therefore it is not their fault that they live this way. He finishes the poem by describing those men's homes and their wives who have willingly submitted to the evil and the falsity, justifying their destruction. The final stanza is his last plea to level the town and return it to the farmland it once was, as it is time cabbage season, allowing the earth to breathe once again. The key literary devices within the poem are undoubtedly imagery, repetition, and metaphor. He uses words such as “repulsive, double chin,” and “cheat,” in order to convey how truly vile the man is while creating an image of him within the mind of the reader. In more than one stanzas, he repeats words such as “tinned” and “smash” as a method of emphasizing his point that the town has been lost and total destruction is the only solution. The last significant literary device he uses is metaphor. The man, the wives, the bald men, even the entirety of the town are all metaphors for the state of the world that he lived in. The man is the embodiment of the corruption and evil that has infested the hearts of the vile, the wives are the submission to the toxicities that have befallen them, the bald men represent the ignorance of the people who have never known anything else and have “tasted Hell.” Lastly, the town itself represents the death of love for the natural world that can be seen all throughout human civilization during their times of war and destruction. Betjeman reinforces over and over that Slough has been lost to darkness, and leveling it is the only solution. This poem is a far cry from the others that I have written about to this point, yet it created so much of an impact on me that it may have reverberated within my mind greater than any poem I have read before. Betjeman’s words created feelings of despair and sympathy for the townsfolk within my heart that no poems have ever done before. I truly felt that this town was full of evil, suffocating darkness that was killing the planet. I stand by his requests completely because it appears as the only course of action for the situation, despite it being so long ago. This poem made me question the way we live life; are we appreciating the planet we live on? Do we treat those around us the way we should? Do we have the sense to see those that are corrupting the world we live in? I do not have the answers to these questions, but I do know that I will live differently now. I only hope that his words will reverberate within you all as well. We must take on the responsibility to live truthfully and kindly, appreciating all that we have, treating it properly and justly. I am thankful for the words Betjeman has written, because I believe they are important, and I hope you may feel the same.
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“Chunkey” by Paul Muldoon
The poem can be found here: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/chunkey/ I thoroughly enjoyed reading this poem because it differed significantly from other Muldoon poems that I have read. In contrast to speaking of heavenly or worldly things, like human nature, he explains a view of life through a simple metaphor. In my opinion, his comparison of our successes in life to a sport also created a message that was easy to understand and follow. Also, being someone who enjoys sports, I liked this poem in particular because it was based on a topic that I am highly familiar with. It also helps to put at ease the feelings that can rise from falling short of our goals, which we all experience at some time or another. The poem starts with an admittance from Muldoon that the game is one that we have “next to nothing straight” about, indicating that it is truly confusing. He then proceeds to describe the game as a fusion of two obscure sports that belong to very specific regions in Central Asia and Ireland. Then, he describes his process of envisioning the spear-thrower envisioning his target, which creates quite a mental picture in my opinion, until he hears the cheers of a monstrous crowd as they chant for their champion to win. Next, Muldoon poses the idea that our knowledge of the moment will fall short, just as the champion’s “spear falls short of a sandstone disk,” and compares the sandstone disk to the sun. However, he changes tact and proposes that people should consider their “grand ambitions” as “grandiose” and their “aversion to averting risk” as “merely rash.” Lastly, he suggests that we should consider winning as just “merely ‘to have come close.’” The imagery found in the early stanzas of the poem is crisp as it creates the sense of the “ten thousand strong” crowd, making an almost audible chant to the reader. Muldoon crafts a clever metaphor as he compares the peoples’ view of the sandstone disk as the sun, meaning that they see that disk as the giver of life and the source of warmth, happiness, and success in their home town. That metaphor is a key piece of the work because it is an indicator of how much the game truly means to the people, and the weight the champion carries on his shoulders. Looking at the broad scheme of the poem, not only does the sandstone disk represent something in life, but the entire sport represents the human struggle for something better, the drive to obtain a greater life than the one possessed, and the hope that rides on the dreams and ambitions of all of us. In the second half of the poem, Muldoon becomes much more straightforward about his message, asking for the consideration of the readers to look at their lives and see things for how they are in the real world, and use their intelligence to see that sometimes coming close to your goals is victory enough. While this poem may seem much more direct than the other poems by Muldoon, it is still heavily embedded with deeper meaning than just seen upon the surface. Even as I was writing this blog post, my understanding of the poem evolved to deeper levels than I had originally anticipated. This poem inspired me and opened my eyes to some of the truths in life: not every goal is reachable and not every risk is worth it, but no matter how short you fall, if you gave it your best effort and came closer than you were before, then it should be considered a victory. Muldoon’s words carry a message of hope with a “keep your chin up” attitude in his writing and a heart-lifting confidence behind it. “Wind and Tree” by Paul Muldoon The poem can be found here: http://belfastgroup.digitalscholarship.emory.edu/groupsheets/muldoon2_10121/ I found this poem fascinating because it was very unlike his other works that I have read through. He does not use metaphors and allusions to speak on biblical matters, but rather to speak of the world today. “Wind and Tree” spoke powerfully to me, opening my eyes to a way of the world I had not previously thought of. It provided me with a change of perspective, allowing me to compare the actions of the trees to those of my own and those around me. Even after spending some time processing and doing other daily things, I still often thought about Muldoon’s words and my place in society. As the poem begins, Muldoon opens with a simile about the similarity between the motions of the earth and the nature of humanity. Through his comparison of humans to trees and the location of the wind to the self-centeredness of humans, it almost appears that he is attempting to lift up humanity out of a corrupted lifestyle or dirty the innocence of nature in order to make us feel more connected to the planet. He does not place himself above the masses of the people, however, because he comments that everything is “centered about ourselves,” showing that he is aware of his position in the circumstances that he is describing. By using the “trees” as a metaphor for the interactions between people, he is also able to use the “wind” in place of the occurrences in the world. His vivid imagery creates a perfect mental picture as he describes the violent motions between the trees as they are “grinding” and “breaking” each other, rubbing “madly together and together.” The way he talks about how certain trees break, while others survive, is a comment on the thoughtlessness for others that we carry throughout our daily lives. He is drawing attention to our inconsideration of how we will affect those around us. However, at the end of the poem, he also says how he uses this nature to his advantage by telling “new weather,” meaning he can notice the changes in the world by the way that people around him are affecting his life. He talks of being alone, “the single tree, going nowhere,” yet he reveals that this is not so, admitting that even he has “broken bones.” Once again, as I read this poem, my understanding of my place in the world changed. I began to think more about the views that Muldoon was pointing out to me: I am not completely intangible in the world and my actions affect other people, regardless whether I think they will or not, and society has lost its care for the others around us. I am now trying to live a more wholesome life, full of consideration and recognition for other people. Due to Muldoon’s words, the belief that the responsibility of helping others and displaying care falls upon us has been reinforced. I also try to explain these views to others, in order to raise the level of consciousness that we have in our everyday lives so that we may all improve the condition of the world. “The Frog” by Paul Muldoon
The poem can be found here: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-frog-2/ “The Frog” begins with the description of a small matter in an area of destruction. Then, it goes into greater detail with a description of a creature whose eye matches the same bubble-like shape that the narrator feels in his spirituality. The narrator decides to stop his work and lift the small frog onto the trowel he has nearby. Suddenly, the poem shifts into a story of how two frogs have become responsible for the rebirth of the whole frog population in Ireland. It also reveals that their home is a pond in the gardens of Trinity College, with two bottles of wine left over after the Act of Union, which was a merger of the United Kingdom and Ireland through parliament. The narrator then insists that there must be some moral that suits our times in society. The poem ends with the narrator posing the question if he could somehow ring that moral out of the frog while comparing him to some sort of food. I believe the most obvious use of symbolism is Muldoon using the frogs as stand-ins for the biblical Adam and Eve, by telling about how the frogs are responsible for the creation of the frog population in Ireland. The pond that they were left in in the gardens of Trinity College is a symbol for the Garden of Eden, which is indicated by the name of the college as “Trinity,” because it is often referred to in biblical contexts. The moral being compared to a juice from sour foods such as “freshly squeezed limes” and a “lemon sorbet” is important because it shows how he believes that the moral he is seeking may be sour. Once again, the final stanza is the most important in this poem because it reveals Muldoon’s belief that our society has an insatiable need to squeeze even the slightest drop of justification from stories that stretch back all the way to Adam and Eve. Muldoon seems to believe that the way religion is studied in our day is corrupted and twisted from the way that it should be. It is proven by the way he says that there is “surely, in this story a moral. A moral for our times.” While I read this poem, I did not realize the allusion that Muldoon was making at first, but the more he revealed, the more I recognized that he was describing Adam and Eve. I believe that Paul Muldoon expertly wrote this poem because he reveals exactly enough information to lead the reader to think about the biblical story. He does this through his explanation of a “pair left to stand” and how they are in the “gardens of Trinity College.” Another aspect of the poem that makes it worthwhile to read is how he berates our modern times for believing that they need to suck all the meaning and life out of a biblical story just to feel comfortable about their lives. This can be seen what he mentions that he must “squeeze” the moral out of the frog. Finally, his clever use of symbolism in comparing the moral to the juice from a “freshly squeezed lime,” which would taste sour, therefore, Muldoon is saying that the moral will be sour and not truly what is important about the story. Overall, I enjoyed reading the poem because it offered an interesting viewpoint of an ancient biblical story. “Hedgehog” by Paul Muldoon
The poem can be found at this site: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/52430 “Hedgehog” begins with the description of a snail and how he shares his secret with the hedgehog. Yet when others ask the hedgehog of his secrets and opinions, he refuses to come out of his shell. The other creatures do not understand why he is so private, but they forget that “the god under his crown of thorns” (the hedgehog) will not trust in the world again. This poem drew me in because of the change that occurred in the final stanza of the poem. The symbolism of the hedgehog to a god or Jesus is a very interesting approach because he depicts a negative relationship between Jesus and “the people.” In my opinion, this is a unique and successful way of writing his poem because Muldoon speaks about the possibility that Jesus’ is mad at the world for what it did to him, and while he may forgive it, he will not forget or trust in it again. I also believe that the snail is symbolism for the prying nature of people and their incessant need to know everything about other people and have their trust, which is displayed by the snail saying, “come out of yourself.” However, the hedgehog is aware of the abuse that one can suffer from giving that trust to others and he refuses to go through that pain again. The final stanza of the poem is the most important because it reveals the entire meaning of the writing. Before that point, the story just appears to be about a forest animal’s distrust of the other animals and it’s own insecurities. The last stanza is also key because it is crucial to understanding the symbolism this is present within the poem. It justifies the meaning behind Muldoon’s words when it says, “never again will a god trust in the world.” I enjoyed reading this poem and believe that it is well written and thought out due to the timing that Muldoon reveals information and the way he builds to the true meaning. This is shown when he writes, “We wonder what a hedgehog has to hide, why it so distrusts,” because he has directly questioned the behavior of the hedgehog right before he provides the answer to his own inquiry. Another aspect of the poem that makes it worthwhile to read is how accurately Muldoon compares the nosiness of the other animals to the nosiness that actual people would have in the same situation. He displays this with their promises to “love” him and how they “mean no harm.” Lastly, his expert use of symbolism by describing the hedgehog as “the god under his crown of thorns,” truly ties the entire piece together to create a poem that has a large impact on the reader. Overall, I thought that it was a successful and memorable poem. |