Anthology poems

• Eat Me

  • Alliteration, assonance and repetition convey the excess and volume she eats.
  • Rhyme and half rhyme schemes of ABA creates sense of claustrophobia.
  • Poem is made up of 10 tercets (3 line stanzas) to mirror regular eating patterns.
  • Each stanza could represent an additional stone, starts at 30, ends on 40, 10 stanzas later.
• Chainsaw Versus the Pampas Grass

  • Chainsaw represents men and grass is women
  • Historical allusion as women were seen as more powerful than men in ancient "Egypt"
  • Cyclical structure - starts with grass, middle its cut down, ends with grass
  • Chainsaw is described with predatorial language
• Material

  • Title referrers to actual material of the hankies and how we are shaped by our mothers and shape our children in turn
  • Regular rhyme scheme of ABCBDEFE suggests formal era of the poem and the constraints the past places on the narrator
  • Mother's death links to disposable nature of tissues
  • Hankie represents nostalgia for lost world, now people use tissues which are more disposable
• History

  • Called 'history' but starts with "today" suggests paying attention to the world's transience acts as an antidote for hatred. it could also suggest that history is in the making
  • Stanza structure is flowy and free to represent the beaches waves
  • Stanza structure switches to organised quatrain, possibly representing the buildings and suggesting that man's world and the natural world are interconnected
• An easy passage

  • Use of opposites used to create a sense of things being on the cusp
  • Written in present tense but the references of astrology are reminders of what the future might hold
  • Question in middle of poem emphasises theme of balance
  • Long and enjambed lines provide a natural easy flow of memories
  • References to light and colour used to portray childhood innocence
• The deliverer

  • Use of short sequences to show the fracturing of family relationships and juxtaposes the two societies
  • The use of bland language to describe the extreme creates a flatness of tone and adds to the bleak situation
  • Language is numb as they treat sex and birth as a chore
• The Lammas Hireling

  • "Bless me father" puts us in the position of a priest
  • Theme of transgression, can be represented with different uses of the word "light". starts as being used to describe cheer, then the light from the lantern from which he sees the vision, then the light is coming from the moon which witnessed the murder, then finally the weight of the body.
  • Weight of his purse at the start becomes the weight of guilt.
  • Rhymes are disrupted between stanzas to emphasis the unnatural
• To my nine-year-old self

  • The shifting pronouns in the poem charts this sense of division between the child and the adult she will become
  • Juxtaposition used to show differences between young self and older self
  • Repetition of "rather" suggests constant possibilities for the future for children
• A minor role

  • Metaphor of the stage is used to show how in the face of a serious illness, the speaker keeps acting.
  • Duel perspective as the speaker is the actor and the audience.
  • Either speaker is caring for a patient and feels unacknowledged, or she is the patient and is the passive observer of her own illness.
  • Direct speech explores societies refusal to accept death.
  • Use of -ing verbs captures the feeling of not allowing for pause or reflection when you have a serious illness.
  • Irregular line and stanza length reflects uncertainty.
• The gun

  • Use of short lines, disruptive line breaks and consonantal sounds in second stanza give an irregular and edgy description to the gun.
  • Poem is in free verse, mirrors the feeling of being free and alive that the gun brings the owners.
  • The transformation of the speakers voice from concerned, to accepting and then participating shows the power of the gun.
  • Ambiguous nature of the "it" in opening line, could be talking about the speaker or the house
  • Gun is personified throughout
• The furthest distance I've travelled

  • Use of of half rhymes and line length give a sense of freewheeling energy.
  • Tone only shifts in the final stanza when the couplets finally settle into full rhyme with lines of similar length, maybe that mirrors acceptance or contemplation.
  • Use of naming remote locations gives a sense of lost memories and exploring your mind to return to the past.
• Giuseppe

  • Language is deliberately flat and factual, only 2 adjectives and one simile, this emphasises the blend of historic realism with a fairy tale element, called magical realism.
  • Poem ends with the word "god" to show how far the characters have moved outside moral boundaries.
  • Use of priest and doctors emphasises how even those in society deemed as safe can be corrupted.
  • Use same methods as the Nazis, enforced by the suggested location of Italy from the title
• Out of the bag

  • Poem itself acts as a bag, as its contents is slowly revealed.
  • Frequent punctuation but lack of end stops mirrors child's mind, irregular and fast.
  • Social constraints on women at the time means the mother doesn't get credit for the birth of her child.
  • Poem starts and ends in same place, shows importance of family or mirrors circle of life.
• Effects

  • Syntax - Written in one long block of text containing only two sentences suggesting an unstoppable flow of thought and feeling, or mirrors the slow death of old age.
  • Closing image of the small bag of effects indicates how little she had to leave behind.
  • irregular rhymes, sometimes 14 lines apart, with scattered couplets, the oscillation between closeness and distance mirrors central relationship.
  • Rhymes becoming denser towards the end, until we reach 3 rhymed lines at the end, possibly showing the speakers sense of finality.
• Genetics

  • Interlacing of words and rhyme suggests the complex inheritance of genetics as revealed in the speakers hands
  • Use of villanelle shows separation yet togetherness, two repeated lines which alternate as the end line of each stanza.
  • Villanelle loops, mirrors a ring, links the idea of marriage in the poem.
  • half rhymes shows how genetics don't create a carbon copy of the parents, it creates a new being.
  • Use of "you" at the end hinting at a new chapter after the reflection of the ended parents marriage.
  • Use of imperfect iambic pentameter reflects how relationships arn't perfect.
• From the journal of a disappointed man

  • contrast between the two types of men shown with speakers knowledge of journals and the workers limited speech
  • Figurative language suggests an ambivalent attitude
  • The workers are engaged in a hopeless task which defeats them, speaker cant understand them, in the end both are disappointed
• Look we have coming to Dover!

  • Grammar of title sets the context that the speaker is not from England.
  • combination of new verbs and colloquial english ones, gives a sense of mixed culture
  • Tabloid language describes them as animalistic and invading
  • Typography of stanzas mirrors waves, criticises tabloids anger of immigrants as it shows how language and location are intertwined.
• Please Hold

  • Repetition creates a maze of language full of wrong turns and dead ends.
  • language is reduced to a banality bordering on the meaningless.
  • 'This is the future' gives a sense of desperate comedy, its repetition makes it eventually just as automated.
  • Final three lines has the progression of 'hold' to 'old' to 'cold' possibly meaning that a whole life might pass by while you wait for an answer.
  • Anthropomorphism - assigning human character traits and behaviours to an inhuman subject, like an object.
• On her blindness

  • The language is plain and conversational, emphasises the mother's loss of sight.
  • Use of enjambment across lines and stanzas disorientates the text, mirrors sight problems.
  • Non-rhyming couplets - with a single final line, visually breaking up the poem, gives emphasis to the idea of her death.
• Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn

  • About a decorated piece of poetry by Grayson Perry
  • about the difference in classes between young people
  • First stanza uses tabloid language when confronting young people
  • Towards the end of the stanza, poet realises that Perry's art is more powerful and subtle then a tabloid expose