Poetry analysis

analysis of a poem, my thoughts, including analysis links

Dead Nun – Nicola Bowery – Analysis

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Dead Nun

Flattened crow, wheeled out
like a lesson in arithmetic.
Death, minus one,
taught by a pickled nun.

I’m not ready for instruction.
Spiders stiffen quietly in corners,
an ant kisses the sand.
I am as virgin of death as they come.

Mother Agatha is dead.
Hurry girls, form a line.
I don’t want to. She’ll smell.
Move on, move on!
You’re not at death’s door yet.

She wasn’t a person, not even a beetle.
Kept in the back room to wither in secret
then served up on a trolley after homework.
She’s gone to Jesus. Say goodbye.
I don’t want to say goodbye.

The line is moving at the pace of one peep only,
the chapel suffocates in chrysanthemums.
There’s a faint whiff of fish,
the smug stare of too many candles,
the sputter of a giggle about to burst.

She’s very neat in her tight-fitting box,
a cardboard cut-out, black feathered still,
her tiny paper hands folded in a holy posture.
She looks beyond the fuss of genuflection.
What about her bridal gown, her smile for Jesus,
the hole her soul escaped from?

I want to jab her toe
and ask her where she’s going
but my knees are melting.
I want to be horizontal and carted away.
There are too many candles in Heaven.

Hush girls, off to bed.

Nicola Bowery, Bloodwood, Bunda Press 1996

The following is my interpretation on the above and as always read the poem and ponder your own thoughts before the colouring of your mind by my words.

Looking at each stanza …

S1 … great opening stanza …goes straight to the focus of the poem – the wheeling out of a dead nun – a nun who taught maths …nice number framing of a death (-1 teacher, or Life – 1 = Death + 1) taught by a pickled nun – on first reading I had the impression the nun taught while ‘pickled’ – could be a cynical view of nuns in general as being preserved for heaven.

S2 … well a different form of instruction now taking place! – first death experience – compare with her current experience of death (crushed ant or a spider) … we can start to put an age on the girl

S3 … the herding by the nuns … very believable language and response … reluctance, and and the young girls equating death to yuk

S4 … tells it all on how this girl felt about nuns – or this nun in particular … kept in a backroom nicely fits the preservation concept and now after death she is being served up (not to heaven – but to the girls on a trolley) … she may have gone to Jesus – but you get the feeling she is very much here

S5 … you can imagine the girls slowing passing the body and the various reactions … and the proliferation of candles which view with a smug stare (well, they are still alive) … and the abundance of flowers

S6 … genuflection was a word that tripped me – it looks like reflection across the generations – I wanted to look it up in the dictionary straight away
(genuflection = to bend the right knee to the floor and rise again as a gesture of religious respect, especially in a Roman Catholic or Anglican church)
But ‘the hole her soul escaped from’ – implies distaste for the nunnery-life – akin to the preserved in a jar from the first stanza. The act of going to Jesus has an unknown and cynical flavour.

S7 … the unknown journey from death makes her think – where has she gone – if only she could tell me – ‘I want to jab her toe’ … but it is all too much – she would like to be horizontal too (bed time) – the proliferation of candles combines to overwhelm – the thought of heaven too much

Summary – I really like this poem for it gives a vivid description of a very believable school experience and the early age personal confrontation with death – combined with a questioning of the life of the nun – it reminds me of that wonderful 1959 film ‘The Nun’s Story’ with Peter Finch and Audrey Hepburn.

Such a poignant ending to the film when Sister Luke (Audrey Hepburn) leaves the convent, her vows and the life and friends she has known, to walk through the door by herself to start her life as a new person – into the ‘real’ world bustle, ‘real’ life. I remember watching this very moving film when I was a schoolboy.

Nicola Bowery is a local Braidwood poet … here is a link for those interested in reading more of Nicola’s work – – http://actwritersshowcase.com/Writers/A-E/Bowery_Nicola.shtml

Blue Moles – Sylvia Plath – Analysis

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Blue Moles

1
They’re out of the dark’s ragbag, these two
Moles dead in the pebbled rut,
Shapeless as flung gloves, a few feet apart —-
Blue suede a dog or fox has chewed.
One, by himself, seemed pitiable enough,
Little victim unearthed by some large creature
From his orbit under the elm root.
The second carcass makes a duel of the affair:
Blind twins bitten by bad nature.

The sky’s far dome is sane and clear.
Leaves, undoing their yellow caves
Between the road and the lake water,
Bare no sinister spaces. Already
The moles look neutral as the stones.
Their corkscrew noses, their white hands
Uplifted, stiffen in a family pose.
Difficult to imagine how fury struck —-
Dissolved now, smoke of an old war.

2
Nightly the battle-snouts start up
In the ear of the veteran, and again
I enter the soft pelt of the mole.
Light’s death to them: they shrivel in it.
They move through their mute rooms while I sleep,
Palming the earth aside, grubbers
After the fat children of root and rock.
By day, only the topsoil heaves.
Down there one is alone.

Outsize hands prepare a path,
They go before: opening the veins,
Delving for the appendages
Of beetles, sweetbreads, shards — to be eaten
Over and over. And still the heaven
Of final surfeit is just as far
From the door as ever. What happens between us
Happens in darkness, vanishes
Easy and often as each breath.

Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes attended ‘Yaddo’ the artist retreat at Saratoga Springs, New York for eleven weeks between September and November 1959. This was one of the poems she wrote at that time. The poem followed her experience of finding two dead moles on the path while walking in the area.

Part 1 … the encounter …
S1 … a description on an unexpected sight … nice comparison with a couple of dropped gloves … she feels pity for them at the hands of some large creature … and they have left their underworld life – the world in which they ‘orbit’ … they could have been twins and had a fight … S1 ends by reflecting that this is ’bad nature’ – projecting her values on what she sees … seemingly the pointless death of the two creatures
S2 … it might have been a clear autumn sky on her walk and there is great contrast between the underground mystery dirt-orbit of the mole and the dome of clarity in the sky in the first line of this stanza …there is no evidence of their burrow from disturbing the surface leaves … they have been neutralised by coming to the surface and being killed become blended with the ground … SP always has a knack of using interesting words – ‘corkscrew noses’ … and then the closing thought how did this happen … the fury of the attack over – only the smoke of battle

Part 2 … the life of the mole personified …
S3 … SP enters the skin of the animal and goes to battle for mole food … imagining what it’s like down there while she is sleeping – the only evidence she has is the above ground mole-hills created as they tunnel … I don’t know though whether they are ‘alone’ presumably moles have underground families … note their killing for food appears legitimate in contrast to the death of the moles
S4 … SP concentrates on the foraging for food aspect … heaven is equated to a surfeit of food (well my dog Rani would agree!) … but what happens down there happens in darkness and continues constantly akin to our breathing in and out … the endless strive for nourishment and the maintenance of existence

SP wrote this on her stay stay at ‘Yaddo’ . She was aged 27 and pregnant with Frieda … not quite knowing where she was going with her work … perhaps at the time more interested in stories than poetry … and in the shadow of TH … in December 1959 the couple would return to England … in three years (Oct 62) much would have changed in her life – she would be separated from TH, in London, with two young children and bravely surviving the mental trauma that plagued her life as she penned her ‘Ariel’ poems. Her definitive work much recognised after her death.

Of the terrible doubt of appearances – Walt Whitman

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Of the terrible doubt of appearances

Of the terrible doubt of appearances,
Of the uncertainty after all, that we may be deluded,
That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable
only,
May-be the things I perceive, the animals, plants, men, hills,
shining and flowing waters,
The skies of day and night, colors, densities, forms, may-be
these are (as doubtless they are) only apparitions, and
the real something has yet to be known,
(How often they dart out of themselves as if to confound me
and mock me!
How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows,
aught of them,)
May-be seeming to me what they are (as doubtless they
indeed but seem) as from my present point of view, and
might prove (as of course they would) nought of what
they appear, or nought anyhow, from entirely changed
points of view;
To me these and the like of these are curiously answer’d by
my lovers, my dear friends,
When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long while
holding me by the hand,
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and
reason hold not, surround us and pervade us,
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom, I am
silent, I require nothing further,
I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of
identity beyond the grave,
But I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.

Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892)

Well trying to understand life and the way we perceive reality is the issue and do we really know anything at all. Of course we are discovering new things all the time – for example the weather forecast is now increasingly more reliable with updates on my mobile every three hours. And we all know that the more we know the more we don’t know. Still by knowing more life can be more enjoyable – we need only consider the medical advances that are keeping us alive much longer.

Looking at the somewhat convoluted text –

May-be seeming to me what they are (as doubtless they
indeed but seem) as from my present point of view, and
might prove (as of course they would) nought of what
they appear, or nought anyhow, from entirely changed
points of view

– maybe this way of expression is appropriate in the circumstances of trying to understand what is really going on and the way others perceive the same thing. Nothing is what it seems (milk often masquerades as cream). As we get older I think we are more accepting and more appreciative of the little things in life without that youthful struggle for answers and worrying about the way others look at life. Content perhaps to just ‘enjoy life’.

But what an extreme thought thinking that we are all living in some mystical dream world that could vanish without meaning! Poets are re-known for travelling the tangents and creating their own unique worlds.

Human connectivity is the saving grace –

To me these and the like of these are curiously answer’d by
my lovers, my dear friends,
When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long while
holding me by the hand

It brings the flighty down to Earth by providing comfort when the mind is exhausted by the unanswerable. And of course appropriate when we are depressed and the world is a hollow emptiness. Whether ‘the holding of hands’ is sufficient or completely satisfying is another matter. But this poem does highlight the importance of innate human connectivity.

Walt Whitman on Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman

… and a quote from Walt Whitman – keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.

… apparently the above poem is a favourite of Stephen Fry when asked to identify his poem for the book of 100 poems that make grown men cry.

The Ash Plant – Seamus Heaney – Spirituality

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The following poem by Seamus Heaney was written in memory of his cattle-farming father. He wrote it in 1986, two years after his father’s death, and four years after his mother’s.

The Ash Plant

He’ll never rise again but he is ready.
Entered like a mirror by the morning,
He stares out the big window, wondering,
Not caring if the day is bright or cloudy.

An upstairs outlook on the whole country.
First milk-lorries, first smoke, cattle, trees
In damp opulence above damp hedges –
He has it to himself, he is like a sentry

Forgotten and unable to remember
The whys and wherefores of his lofty station,
Wakening relieved yet in position,
Disencumbered as a breaking comber.

As his head goes light with light, his wasting hand
Gropes desperately and finds the phantom limb
Of an ash plant in his grasp, which steadies him.
Now he has found his touch he can stand his ground

Or wield the stick like a silver bough and come
Walking again among us: the quoted judge.
I could have cut a better man out of the hedge!
God might have said the same, remembering Adam.

Seamus Heaney

Carol Rumens the English poet selected this poem as one of her weekly selections. The following is a link to her detailed exploration of the above text. See https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/may/23/poem-of-the-week-the-ash-plant-by-seamus-heaney.

Included in that discussion is the following paragraph –

Five solid quatrains, the wonderfully effortless ABBA half-rhyme, a firm pentameter beat, and the emphasised cadence of numerous feminine line-endings: these building blocks have and contain the density of the real world, but they signify more. The father in the poem is waking up after his death, “Entered like a mirror by the morning.” He is uncertain, a new shade, unmoored from life but not far beyond it, like a sentry “unable to remember / The whys and wherefores of his lofty station” (as a sentry’s ghost might be perplexed in a Northern Ireland of future ceasefire). Then “his wasting hand” finds “the phantom limb” of the Ash Plant and “… he has found his touch and can stand his ground”. It’s a lovely image that suggests a frail old man in his later years taking up his stick and, in that moment, finding his balance and becoming sure on his feet, as if recovering a younger body. The shade is transfigured, and, light-filled, he gains full authority. And once again the son gently smiles at the father and teases him as “the quoted judge” for his dry comment, “I could have cut a better man out of the hedge!”

I mention this in particular because the second line ‘Entered like a mirror by the morning’ caught my imagination as a wonderful metaphor for the new life of a ‘shade’. A mirror can never tell us who we really are but on death Heaney implies a walking through the mirror to an understanding of a new self from the other side of the mirror. And then he suggests the generation of a spiritual presence in on-going life as a ‘sentry’.

You can imagine Heaney’s Father in the top bedroom of an old farmhouse looking out over his life’s endeavour and being proud of what he has achieved over the years. The ‘damp opulence’ is an appropriate choice of words. Damp and Ireland are synonymous and opulence is such a good choice (compare to wealth). And here he is being reborn to this environment taking his first tentative steps from on high. It is interesting that he needs the support of the Ash Plant. Rod and Staff and Psalm 23 come to mind. But can he protect the future on the way the land will change as the years unfold. It would be somewhat poetic to think that he had some on-going influence as a ‘shade’.

I think there is a sense of humour in the statement – ‘I could have cut a better man out of the hedge!’. To me it implies that he could have done better. And to suggest that God could have done better is quite entertaining.

The literary significance of the Ash Plant is discussed in detail by Carol Rumens.

It is a very interesting poem showing Seamus Heaney had a somewhat mystical thinking on a resurrection and an after-life.

If I Could Tell You – W. H. Auden – Analysis

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If I Could Tell You

Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose the lions all get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.

W. H. Auden

Looking at the structure, this is a villanelle – a distinct poetic form of 19 lines with five three line stanzas and a closing four line stanza.

The key to the villanelle is the two rhyming lines which flow through the whole of the piece, in this case …

Time will say nothing but I told you so,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Once you have created ‘the key’ you have in fact created eight of the nineteen lines.

Another feature of the villanelle is the end-rhyme word of each second line in the six stanzas as well as the rhyming dictated by the key in the other lines.

It has a detached tone and there is modification to the iambic pentameter rhythm in line 14. A well crafted poem.

This is a poem about time and the repetitive nature of the villanelle is ideal for holding the thought on one aspect of time. The inability to see the future but inevitably the future will arrive given time. We all have to pay the price – our lives are input. How do we influence the future? – well that’s another question.

Time is personified. The reader contemplates and adds his or her own thoughts. For example, if time is an animal then this animal knows something that we don’t know … the animal makes real its nature on an on-going basis … until eventually it swallows us up. Or if time is a novel of infinite pages then we must wait for time to turn the page at the same time adding our own lines in the process. Each page is of course unique according to the reading of the individual and when we no longer feature in the story the story still progresses … hopefully there will be a happy ending or happy endings to chapters … we all seek happy endings don’t we?

But returning to the text, the thing is we all want to know the future … we may have expectations … and looking at the text …

In S2 … will we enjoy the show that we are going to tonight … our expectation is usually positive … will we stumble make mistakes, interfere or disrupt others
In S3 … fortunes are unknown … but it looks as though time has a thread of love and would like ‘fortunes’ to occur
In S4 … whatever eventuates has a reason … things will happen because … but we often have little understanding of the ‘because’ and any rationality
In S5 … do the roses really want to grow … does nature have a force for survival … and if roses equates to love then does love always seek expression

In the closing quatrain … there is fear … what will happen if we have no army … a sense of being insecure.

This poem is decontextualized from time and place and this perhaps adds value to the poem. If it was specific to a period and place would this detract?

Adding a date adds a dimension to the poem … this poem appeared in Auden’s posthumous Collected Poems – the editor Edward Mendelson attached a date at the end of the poem – October 1940 … he then linked it to the war equating the ‘lions’ to the English and the soldiers to WWII. This disturbs the notion of the poem as a self-contained unit … perhaps I should say as a timeless unit! And if you have just read this post you will see that I have influenced the future in some small unknown way – enjoy your day!

Yes – Brian Patten – Analysis

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Yes

Last night I dreamt again of Adam returning
to the garden’s scented, bubbling cauldron.
Eve was beside him.
their shadows were cut adrift
and the hum of bees was in their blood,
and the world was slow and good and all
the warm and yawning newness of their flesh
was fixed forever in the glow of “Yes”.

Brian Patten

Yes, Yes Yes ! – a poem in the strong affirmative … religion can often to be a No, No, No and a restriction on life

… in a way this is a full circle poem, the beginning and the end … similar to birth-death … remember TSE’s memorial words … in my end is my …

… Jesus is often thought of as the second Adam … providing the transformation from the negative to the positive … with the emphatic statement …Yes! … JC came to give life! … and as by-product – joy!

… interesting that since ‘the fall’ (or just the imperfect world) the state of life is a bubbling cauldron = indicating to me an on-going mystical transformation

… so the second garden scene may see the unification of Adam and Eve … perhaps as depicted by the image above … a great change from the original and that apple! … and the much misaligned Eve … a touch of heavenly permanence

… and I like the significance of the shadows cut adrift. The difference between shadow and shade (Dante). … a spiritual union taking place – a higher order marriage in the after-life

Re shadow and shade : – The Italian word ombra in Dante’s lexicon means both “shadow” (as in the shadow cast by a body) and “shade” (a term for the form of the soul in the afterlife). On the terrace of lust, as Dante’s very real body prepares for its most challenging test, the poet shows–via a lecture by Statius–how the two meanings of ombra combine to encapsulate the fundamental relationship between life and afterlife. When the soul leaves the body, Statius explains, it “impresses” the body’s form on the surrounding air (as saturated air is adorned with colors of a rainbow), and the resulting “virtual” body follows the spirit just as a flame follows fire. This new form therefore goes by the name of “shade” / “shadow” (ombra): as a “shadow” follows–and repeats the form of–a real body, so the “shade” takes on all bodily parts and functions
(Courtesy – http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/textpopup/pur2501.html )

Brian Patten on Wikipedia – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Patten

Brian Patten’s Poetry Site – http://www.brianpatten.co.uk/poetry.html

Richard – Carol Ann Duffy

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Richard

My bones, scripted in light, upon cold soil,
a human braille. My skull, scarred by a crown,
emptied of history. Describe my soul
as incense, votive, vanishing; your own
the same. Grant me the carving of my name.

These relics, bless. Imagine you re-tie
a broken string and on it thread a cross,
the symbol severed from me when I died.
The end of time – an unknown, unfelt loss –
unless the Resurrection of the Dead …

or I once dreamed of this, your future breath
in prayer for me, lost long, forever found;
or sensed you from the backstage of my death,
as kings glimpse shadows on a battleground.

Carol Ann Duffy

When a poem has to be written for a special event it is not often that a brilliant piece of work materialises such as the above poem written by the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy for the reburial ceremony of Richard the Third after the discovery of his bones underneath a carpark near Leicester cathedral in 2012.

The following is a YouTube link to the ceremony of the reburial in Leicester Cathedral. Included is the reading of the above poem by Benedict Cumberbatch – a blood descendant on the female line … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvhLbqbVh24 – at 17m 10sec in the video.

Bones likened to human braille … braille = a writing system for the visually impaired … a very apt comparison for ‘Richard the Third’s bones lay hidden for more than 500 years and from and the ‘DNA language’ of his bones it was established that they indeed belonged to Richard the Third. And now he will be truly remembered with the carving of his name.

Votive = ritual. I particularly like the simple words ‘lost long forever found’ with the double meaning – his physical memorial in the cathedral and a biblical spiritual reference.

This link gives full details behind the text of the poem … http://genius.com/Carol-ann-duffy-richard-annotated including are references to a number of biblical texts and Christian philosophy.

Richard the Third died at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, the last major battle in the war of the roses and he was the last English king to die in battle.

Here is the Wikipedia link to details of that battle … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bosworth_Field

And for those interested in the history of Richard the Third here is the Wikipedia link  to the king … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_of_England

Gold Leaves – G. K. Chesterton – Analysis

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Gold Leaves

Lo! I am come to autumn,
When all the leaves are gold;
Grey hairs and golden leaves cry out
The year and I are old.

In youth I sought the prince of men,
Captain in cosmic wars,
Our Titan, even the weeds would show
Defiant, to the stars.

But now a great thing in the street
Seems any human nod,
Where shift in strange democracy
The million masks of God.

In youth I sought the golden flower
Hidden in wood or wold,
But I am come to autumn,
When all the leaves are gold.

G. K. Chesterton.

Nice iambic rhythm to the syllables with end rhyme in the shorter second and fourth lines.
Syllables in the first stanza …
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ / ^^
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ / ^
^ ^ ^ ^^ / ^ ^ ^
^ ^ ^ ^ ^ / ^
S1 – the gold leaves of autumn equated to the silver hair of the aging … the aging year equated to the aging person
S2 – when young seeking to be a leader and associating with the strong and defiant even when in error (when the weeds were showing) … Titan strong and large force
S3 – but with age God is now found in any human nod and in the common place – in the street … I like the thought in the statement ‘the democracy of God’ … evident in all humanity
S4 – in youth there was a search in a hidden world – a search for meaning … finding gold or is that God – but in old age gold or God can be seen everywhere – it seems that there is a sense of contentment – the search and battle over – less energy and not so idealistic perhaps … more time to value all the gold in abundance that surrounds the beauty of life.

A link to G. K. Chesterton on Wikipedia.