Poetry of the Decade - History, An Easy Passage, The Deliverer

Question 1

H - Structure?

Answer 1

No consistent rhyme, Only four sentences, stream of consciousness (represents chaos of life), but structured in thoughts of clarity surrounding the bigger picture situation (9/11)

Question 2

Poet of History?

Answer 2

John Burnside

Question 3

H - ‘today’, ‘today’, ‘on days like this’

Answer 3

Repetition of time markers - shows a struggle to remain present amidst the significance of historical events

Question 4

H - ‘Gasoline smell from Leuchars’, ‘to the hum of the radio’

Answer 4

Intrusion of man-made items - how the man-made overshadows the beauty and significance of the natural world

Question 5

H - ‘Jamjars of spawn and sticklebacks of gold fish carried home from fairgrounds’

Answer 5

childish interactions with nature which at once seemed innocent now seem to be, in adulthood, damaging and harmful (adults overthink and can not live in the moment)

Question 6

H - ‘- with the news in my mind, and the muffled dread of what may come -‘

Answer 6

Parenthesis - emphasisies the separation and intrusion of the historical moment on the everyday/present

Question 7

H - ‘snail shells, shreds of razorfish; smudges of weed and flesh on the tideworn stone.’

Answer 7

Sibilance - emphasises the peace of nature, attention is drawn back, infiltration of violence even on the natural (razor, smudges, flesh)

Question 8

H - ‘reading from the book of silts and tides’

Answer 8

Authority of the natural world in a metaphor. Natural marks on the world are important to escape from the man-made

Question 9

H - ‘a child’s first nakedness’

Answer 9

contrasts vulnerability and peaceful innocence with the magnitude of the historical moment, attempt to balance the two

Question 10

H - ‘Through everything attentive to the irredeemable’

Answer 10

ends on a positive tone, the significance of his son’s youth and how the present moment can not be regained so there focus should remain

Question 11

Poet of An Easy Passage?

Answer 11

Julia Corpus

Question 12

AEP - Structure?

Answer 12

single stanza = single moment in time (more sentimental and impactful)

Structural shifts in punctuation - the poem is more punctuated when the focus is on the speaker than when it is on the girls, illustrating the restriction of aging and freedom of youth.

Question 13

AEP - ‘crouched in her bikini’ ‘her tiny breasts’

Answer 13

balance between the innocent and maturity/sexualisation of the girl represents how she is on the cusp of womanhood. An extremely transitional/pivotal moment making the ‘passage’ into adulthood (but it is not terrible, rather ‘easy’)

Question 14

AEP - ‘narrow windowsill’ ‘sharp drop of the stairwell’

Answer 14

the girl is in a precarious moment of transiion in her life, emphasised in the tricolon of ‘flimsy, hole-punched aluminum’. The house is a symbol of motherhood, entrance is a sharp turn from freedom.

Question 15

AEP - ‘lit, as if from within,’ ‘gold stud’ vs the lady ‘drab’ and ‘grey’

Answer 15

colour imagery presents a contrast between the warmth and value of youth with the mundane blandness of age.

Question 16

AEP - ‘she plans to take’ ‘omens of the astrology column’

Answer 16

looking towards the future in age, longing an escape from the misery of modern life OR that hope persists in age.

Question 17

AEP - ‘dropping gracefully’

Answer 17

Ready for womanhood, hopeful that the passage to maturety is easier rather than awkward and fragmented.

Question 18

AEP - ‘.- what can she know // of the way the world admits us less and less // the more we grow?’

Answer 18

Caesura and double pause demonstrates the intrusion of the older speaker. Younger is too naive to understand the restriction of ageing.

Question 19

AEP - ‘warm flank of the house’

Answer 19

Womanhood should not be feared, there is security found in age.

Question 20

AEP - ‘Far too, most far’

Answer 20

Parallel phrasing seperates in spirit and stage of life.

Question 21

Poet of The Deliverer?

Answer 21

Tishani Doshi

Question 22

TD - Structure?

Answer 22

Ambiguous speaker and seperated stanzas demonstrate different perspectives, the detachment and fragmented identity caused by trauma.

Question 23

TD - ‘crippled or dark or girls’

Answer 23

Tricolon, girls coming last depicts their lack of importance.

Question 24

TD - lack of figurative language

Answer 24

Blunt, unavoidable truth of infanticide. Detachment caused by trauma.

Question 25

TD - 'covered in garbage, stuffed in bags, abandoned'

Answer 25

Simple verbs, brutal reality reqires no further emphasis. Children are dehumanised and vulnerable.

Question 26

TD - 'head barely poking above the ground' 'returns to twilight corners'

Answer 26

Hidden nature of the taboo of infanticide, shameful.

Question 27

TD - 'This is the one my mother will bring' 'the parents'

Answer 27

pronouns introduce the sense of detatchment and removal from childhood, she lacks a root identity.

Question 28

TD - 'fetish for plucking hair off hands'

Answer 28

strange behaviour as a trauma response, it causes confusion and shame.

Question 29

TD - 'they are crying. We couldn't stop crying, my mother said'

Answer 29

Promoun shift - sense of ambiguity and shifts to the adopted parent. prolongued effect of trauma extends to the family.

Question 30

TD - 'This girl grows up on video tapes'

Answer 30

Pronoun - detached from her childhood, lack of a stable identity.

Question 31

TD - 'passed from woman // to woman'

Answer 31

Enjambment - emphatic of the instability and lack of belonging for the girl.

Question 32

TD - 'where mothers go to squeeze out life'

Answer 32

Pun - birth or death. conflating the two makes it all the more brutal on the cusp of life and death.

Question 33

TD - 'body slither out from body'

Answer 33

Biblical allusion - women are undesirable sinners who are weak and harmful.

Question 34

TD - 'penis or no penis'

Answer 34

Linguistic parallel shows the importance of gender in a brutally minimalist way. Language mimics the weight of the decision.

Question 35

TD - 'lie down for their men again'

Answer 35

women are equally victimised by the cyclical, oppressive patriarchy.