The relentless passage of time and the loss of human lives are in no doubt hugely apparent themes in Boland’s poetry. In fact I believe them to be probably the most profound issues which she deals with, and I find her means of exploring them, through a juxtaposition of personal exposure and political address to be highly impressive. Although her poetry is extensive in its subjects, her clear consideration of inevitability itself and the tragedy and loss which can be associated with it is explicitly prevalent within it all. We can see it when she opens up her own heart to us in ‘Love’ and ‘The Shadow Doll’ and when she explores the relationship between her parents in ‘The Black Lace Fan’, when she illustrates the cyclical nature of violence and the effects of profound human suffering in ‘The War Horse’ and ‘The Famine Road’ and when she cleverly alludes to the loss of childhood and innocence in ‘This Moment’. Her overall examining of these issues and her vivid concern relating to them left me feeling mesmerized and I truly believe them to be highly thought-provoking and unforgettable as major issues within her poetry.
After reading ‘The famine Road’ I was struck by her utterly affecting interpretation of the dehumanizing effect of appalling suffering, such as was experienced during the Irish famine, and at the same time mesmerized by her hugely clever, intertwining of stories to create an ultimately striking metaphor. She tells through several voices, the almost indescribably harrowing story of the Irish Famine victims and how the loss of human lives can result in dehumanization. The first voice is that of Sir Charles Trevelyan who was the official in charge of relief work .His voice is one of condemnation; the Irish are ‘idle as trout in light. This being a dramatic poem, and as allowed by poetic license, Boland speaks for the characters and through her he decides to give out no money to the starving; he will ‘give them no coins at all’. Instead he will make them work because ‘their bones need toil, their characters no less’. She writes ‘Trevelyan’s seal blooded the deal table’ and I believe this metaphor is appropriate to signify the suffering and loss that the Irish will endure as a consequence of his deliberations.
The Essay on On Finding Nightingales in Human Voices
Anne Finch’s “To the Nightingale” is an ode to a Muse, which is represented by the nightingale. The poem is written in a series of rhyming couplets that provides it a singsong rhythm throughout, which is appropriate for its subject. When emphasizing the merits of being a nightingale, the speaker articulates the difficulties of being a human poet, subject to judgment by his critics. In “To the ...
There is another voice running throughout the poem in interlocking stanzas. It is that of a doctor, addressing a female patient on the subject of her infertility. The tone is clinical, impersonal and derelict of any sympathy or compassion. ‘One out of every ten/another third of those again’ I thought his attitude towards a suffering individual to be an ironic counterpart of Trevelyan’s attitude towards a suffering race. To me, it is as if there is a refusal to become involved, a patronizing dismissal of the woman and her problem, which is seen merely as one of the ‘mysteries’ of life. The doctor’s advice to the woman to work ‘grow your garden’ echoes in its condemnation and indifference to human suffering as Trevelyan.
As the poem unfolds, the consequences of Trevelyan’s decision are described by the narrator in a deeply harrowing and almost raw depiction. I thought the imagery to be extremely unsettling and disturbing. The peasants ‘sick, directionless’ are shown working without tools ‘fork, stick were iron years away’. The blood symbolized by Trevelyan’s seal is now a reality as the Irish ‘blood their knuckles on rock’
One of the most unsettling parts of the poem is when the narrative voice enlarges on the theme of dehumanization through appalling suffering. Typhoid has struck one of the workers on the famine road. Instead of being helped in his plight however, he has become an outcast among his own kin ‘his blood tainted/although he shares it with some there’. The most basic human feelings of compassion have been hardened in these people. All the emotions which make us human have been uprooted and the rituals which bind society have been discarded, ‘no more than snow attends its own flakes where they settle and melt will they pray by his death rattle’. Poetry, I have always found, is the best and most perfect form of encapsulating emotion, but here by eliminating it from the lines in the poem, Boland has encouraged, me the reader, to experience it all the more and I found myself empathizing with the nameless characters and becoming almost chokingly disturbed by her descriptions of their forgotten sorrow.It is in this section where I believe the effect of the loss of human lives is most apparent.
The Essay on Venus And Adonis Poem Nature Love
Venus and Adonis: Images of Sexuality in Nature "Love is the answer, but while you are waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty good questions." - Woody Allen Throughout his plays and poetry Shakespeare im beds numerous and diverse themes, many of them relating to love, sexuality, life, death, religion and countless others. In his poem Venus and Adonis Shakespeare tackles the theme of ...
The final lines were for me, the most compelling. The last voice appears to address, with a mixture of sympathy and hopelessness, the woman’s despair at her barren state. By directly comparing her body to ‘a famine road’ the voice implies a link between the sufferings of the individual and those of the suffering country. The woman indeed, may be seen as an apt symbol for Ireland during the famine years though she is far removed from the symbol of beautiful womanhood (Cathleen Ni Houlihan and Dark Rosaline) traditionally associated with this country. Like her country, she is a pitiful and powerless victim of famine and indifference and her sufferings have rendered her incapable of sustaining life. It is noteworthy too, that the woman remains anonymous throughout the poem. She is representative I believe of and a silent spokesperson for, the countless nameless dead, particularly women, who lost their lives during the Famine. I truly believe it is exemplary of Boland’s desire to give a voice to the voiceless.T he fact that her story ultimately relates so the story of the famine victims turns her into a possible metaphor for what is left after a relentless passing of time. It is a known fact that the population of Ireland has yet to reach its pre-famine level and it could be said that the more modern character in the story being unable to bear children represents the weakness so to speak, of a modern Ireland still less populated as a result of loss of human lives combined with a relentless passage of time.
The Essay on Small Hands Poem Love Speaker
Edward Estlin Cummings was an American poet - the second most widely read poet in the United States, after Robert Frost - born in 1894. He was immensely popular, especially among younger readers for his work; he experimented radically with form, punctuation, spelling and syntax. The majority of his poems turn to the subjects of love, war, and sex, with such simplistic language, abandoning ...
From the political to personal Boland never fails to impress. A poem which contrasts greatly with ‘Famine road’ but which also explores the themes of loss and the relentless passage of time is ‘Love’, a hugely personal poem addressed to her husband. From the opening, I thought it to be immediately engaging as the poet details her early days of marriage in Iowa with her husband-‘A mid-western town/where we once lived’
Through the compelling use of myth and metaphor the poet suggests a connection between her experiences there and the myth concerning Aeneas. The tale of Aeneas crossing the river to the underworld in order to speak with his old companions only to find that they cannot speak to him , however much they try to, mirrors Boland feelings concerning the inevitable changes which have occurred between her and her husband over the years. As the poem unfolds, we learn about her early marriage days and she intensely describes how she felt.
‘And we discovered there
Love had the feather and muscle of wing
And had come to live with us
A brother of fire and air’
I loved Boland’s use of metaphor in ‘Love’, particularly her above conveyance of love. I thought it expertly conveyed what a romantic and profound thing love can be. It was, it seems, as vital to their lives as the elements themselves. It is this love which will become the subject of loss due to a relentless passage of time. Despite the intensity of their love, their lives were also ‘touched by death’ at this time, though happily, their child who was suffering from illness survived. The poet makes an explicit connection between this event and the myth: ‘and when the hero /was hailed by his comrades in hell/their mouths opened and their voices failed’. I could not help but wonder here , whether the poet was suggesting that this traumatic experience had the effect of weakening ,for the first time the lines of communication between them-‘their voices failed and/there is no knowing what they would have asked/about a life they had shared and lost’? The lovers, traumatized by the awful experience of seeing their child almost die, were similar to Aeneas’ comrades in hell in their inability to communicate with one another.
Whitman Essay Love Relationship Speaker
Whitman Essay Love is the greatest gift that God has bestowed upon mankind. Defining love is different for every culture, race, and religion. Walt Whitman's love is ever changing for anyone who tries to love him or understand his work. Love can be broken down into a multitude of emotions, and feelings towards someone or some object. In order to find love that is searched for, preparations must be ...
I thought that as the poem developed, the switch to the present tense was exceptionally powerful.The relentless passage of time becomes obvious. It had the effect of placing all the events described in the opening stanzas in the category of former experiences-‘I am your wife/It was years ago/our child is healed’. They still love each other and communicate with each other-‘we speak plainly. We hear each other clearly’. And yet there is a suggestion that the urgent intensity of their former experience of love is missing ‘day to day and ordinary distances’ have opened up between them. Clearly, the poet misses and longs for this intensity which she can so vividly recall. ‘And yet i want to return to you on the bridge of the Iowa River as you were’
As the poem draws to a close, Boland observes the similarity between the situation between the lovers and the situation depicted in the myth. Her husband is Aeneas’ see you as a hero in a text ‘and she represents the companions who wished feverently to voice their inner thoughts and feelings.
‘And I long to cry out the epic question
My dear companion:
Will we ever live so intensely again?’
But just like in the myth, she is unable to convey her feelings to her husband. Her words are ‘shadows and you cannot hear me’. I was touched by this note of sorrow that concludes the poem. She asks; ‘will we ever live so intensely again? ‘And answers it when she writes ‘you walk away and i cannot follow’ reinforcing the mythological comparison.
What I so admired about ‘Love’ as well as striking use of metaphor, was the ripe, almost soulful and undecorated honesty that she exposes primarily concerning her relationship as well as her innermost feelings. This type of honesty is also tangible in her poem ‘The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me’ which is a truly significant poem in terms of love and romance. It is undoubtedly romantic, but also deeply honest and sincere. Through examining an object given to her by her mother she shows us the truths of her parents relationship, the results of a long and inevitable passage of time and the impossibility of recreating, and hence loss of moments long past .
She excels at drawing the reader into the dramatis scene presented at the opening of the poem. The setting is ‘pre-war Paris’ which on the outset delivers an image of the city traditionally associated with lovers, but also has political connotations and could suggest that the relationship between her parents was also pre-war. She tells a story, through brief and informative language-‘she was late/she ordered more coffee/she stood up’, of a young couple in the early days of their relationship. ‘They met in cafes’. The man presents his girlfriend with the gift of a fan, traditionally an erotic object presented to a lover, and Boland stresses the importance of it to her mother.-‘It was the first gift he ever gave her/buying it for five francs in the Galleries’.
The Term Paper on How Has Social Media Affected the Relationship Between Celebrities and Fans?
What is particularly interesting about Twitter (and to a lesser extent Facebook) is the newfound proximity we ‘normal people’ have to modern celebrities. These Celebrities once performed their professional duties at a distance and were only accessible through one-way relationships; third parties such as tabloids, TV shows, and interviews. Now, however they are within our reach. Newsstand and ...
There are more political connotations as the poem unfolds. Paris was soon to fall to the onslaught of the Nazi’s , and even hinted at in lines such as -‘The heat was killing/She thought the future smelled of rain and thunder.’
Her father is late to meet her mother, and her mother stands up, considers leaving and I think the dramatic tension being created here by Boland is electric.
Then the poem changes and Boland begins, only naturally to examine the object itself and using it a metaphor, the relationship between her parents.
‘These are wild roses, appliquéd by hand,
Darkly picked, stitched boldly, quickly.’
Herr keen eye for detail is evident in how she describes the relationship of her parents by analyzing the fan. She hopes to come to some greater understanding than one might achieve by simply glancing at an object. The fan has the colour of ‘tortoiseshell and has the reticent clear patience of its element’. I think that the details here suggest the enduring and patient nature of the relationship. After all, the tortoise is remarkable for its longevity and patience. It is ‘worn-out’, suggesting perhaps, that the ravages of time that has brought its own trying qualities to the relationship. But it has endured and despite-or perhaps because of these-it has a acquired a precious quality’. In contrast to some of Boland’s other poems, in the Black Lace Fan the relentless passage of time ,as can be seen, does not necessarily result predominantly in loss but rather in a more positive outcome.
The Essay on Father And His Son Poem Relationship One
It is interesting that Elizabeth Jennings has chosen a Father and his Son in this poem rather than a relationship that she is more likely to have had experience with. A Father and his son however, traditionally have a very strong bond built on shared interests with the son generally making his father his role model. The effects and feelings of separation that Jennings wants to convey in this poem ...
I was intrigued by her sense of reality towards the end of the poem. The full truth of her parents’ relationship can never be fully known. Realizing that the past cannot be recreated-‘it is an empty cafe terrace’, she introduces the daring image of the fan as a blackbird. I found the image enchanting. As it spreads its wings a celebratory tone is implied. It is as if Boland is telling us that despite its shortcomings, the relationship has survived and has retained over the years, an element of that ‘flirtatious’ romanticism which first marked the handing over of the fan as a present. While the poem honestly acknowledges the flaws and vulnerability of her parents’ relationship, it also celebrates its enduring quality, its essentially romantic nature, and the way in which it bore ‘fruit’. I think it is a beautiful poem of raw honesty and enduring love, which exemplifies the positive possibilities of time passing.
‘This Moment’, like ‘The Black Lace Fan’ deals with the theme of relationships, but unlike it focuses on the filial relationship between a mother and child and it was I felt, an example of beauty in a most simple ,elegant and touching form. It demonstrates wonderfully, through an economic way of using language, the almost beyond-natural power of the bond between a mother and her child and the inevitable loss of innocence and childhood due to both temptation and the unstoppable passage of time. At first reading, it operates purely on a descriptive level, seeking to capture, in a series of brief images, the essence of a particular moment. The scene is a quiet ‘neighborhood’. The time is dusk, creating the idea that the poem takes place in an in-between moment’ where ‘things are getting ready to happen’ however they are not ready. ‘But not yet’. It is only in the one stanza in the middle of the poem, in which are placed the sole humans and the only movements, that tensions are released.
‘A woman leans down to catch her child,
Who has run into her arms
This moment.’
The image is a climax to the anticipation and it demonstrates a moment of exquisite tenderness and innocence .However, there are underlying elements of the sinister evident, I feel, in the message which the poem portrays. This can be seen quite implicitly in the final stanza. She tells us that ‘apples sweeten in the dark’. This is my favorite image in the entire poem simply because it highlights Boland’s cleverness in choosing it. The apple has biblical associations and it acted as the catalyst in Paradise Lost. I wonder, by using it to end her poem, is Boland suggesting the paradise in ‘this moment’ will be lost? Or that perhaps the innocence of the child will not sustain or will be tested against the fast approaching time of temptation? It is possible that she is representing the step between childhood and adulthood with the ‘in-between’ moment in the poem. The suburban neighborhood in-between the city and the country, dusk in-between night and day and the contrast between light and dark-‘Black tree/Window as yellow as butter’ all allude to this.
I believe the descriptive details give the poem a very sensual quality. There is a strong emphasis on colour and on the visual-‘Rinds slanting around fruit’, and on taste-‘Apples sweeten’ which contribute greatly to the overall, evocative style of writing.
As is apparent from my discussion of the above poems Boland has a clear concern for the themes of loss of human lives and the relentless passage of time. She explores them conspicuously and inconspicuously through a language both highly memorable and strikingly beautiful .For me, it created an unforgettable effect of thought provocation and as a result my association with either will always lead back to these beautiful and brilliant poems by Eavan Boland.
