Poetry Flashcards
(15 cards)
1
Q
The City Planners
A
- Critique of suburban conformity
- Critique of the planning
- Natural world hiding behind man-made façade
2
Q
The Planners (Singapore)
A
- Loss of heritage, identity and history (as flaws)
- City has been designed and planned to present perfection
- Lack of connection for speaker (irregular rhyme scheme and fragmented stanza)
3
Q
The Man with Night Sweats (AIDS)
A
- Betrayed by his body
- Illness reshaping his masculinity
- Break down of his body - controlled structure mirror his attempt to hold on to control
4
Q
Night Sweat (Bi-polar)
A
- Terrifying reality of mental-illness - fragmented rhyme
- Power of love (sonnets split by his wife)
- Guilt felt as loved ones bear mental illness
5
Q
Rain (WWI)
A
- Inescapable bleak reality of war - regular rhythm and repetition but no rhyme
- War distanced him from his past life
- Powerlessness of soldiers in the face of death
6
Q
Spirit Too Blunt (Baby)
A
- Complexity and precision of human body
- Fluid continuity of biological growth through free verse and enjambment
- Humility that human creation is beyond comprehension
7
Q
Long Distance (Grief)
A
- Irrationality of grief
- Comfort in familiar and connection of family - regular rhyme scheme symbolises attempt to maintain routine
- Starring moment of realisation in the final stanza
8
Q
Funeral Blues (Satirical)
A
- From POV of author - power and glorification of politicians is too much
- From other POV - overwhelming power of grief
- Connection can feel as if it defines your existence
9
Q
He Never Expected Much (Life)
A
- Life should be seen for what it is and not overly romanticised
- Regardless of how we live life we all end up dead
- By not expecting much challenges are easier to bear
10
Q
Telephone Call (Lottery)
A
- Materialistic nature of society - value beyond money forgotten
- Power corporations have over us - criticising capitalism?
- Humour and underlying warning of the overwhelming effect of becoming rich
11
Q
Consumer’s Report (Live Life)
A
- Life as a product (metaphor)
- Life can be challenging and hard to find happiness in
- We should be able to take control of life - society can judge not limit
12
Q
Request to a Year (Waterfall)
A
- Female strength of mind
- Wish to be able to find a way of accepting the inability to control her children’s’ lives
- Her wish to be more than a mother
13
Q
Small fly
A
- How fly’s body is depicted
- Death as inevitable
- Fear we will not be remembered as blameless - caesura and volta with shift to humans (stark contrast)
14
Q
Ozymandias
A
- Transient nature of human power/life
- Hubris of political leaders who believe they are omnipotent
- Timeless power of art as opposed to legacy
15
Q
Away Melancholy (lapsed atheist)
A
- Melancholy as inescapable - inconsistent rhyme scheme - (we should be able to escape it)
- Man’s greatest achievement being creating God
- Sense of pride in what humans are capable of
