Poetry of The Decade - Please Hold, On Her Blindness, Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn Flashcards
(39 cards)
Poet of Please Hold?
Ciaran O’Driscoll
PH - Structure?
Long stanza and an ending tercet - conclusion, order and regulation forced upon the speaker, language becomes robotic. Eventual conformity.
PH - ‘The robot is giving me countless options, // none of which answer to my needs.’
Robot is an extended metaphor for modern life, presents an illusion of choice but a reality of coercion.
PH - ‘when I give him my telephone number’ ‘when I give him my account number’
Passive verbs show his lack of control, parallel phrasing shows the monotony of modern life, joyless and dull.
PH - ‘I’m talking to a robot’ ‘I shout’ ‘I scream Agent!’
Increasing depseration in forms of expression, growing frustration and fear.
PH - ‘I scream Agent! and I am cut off’
Futility of rebellion
PH - ‘Eine Kleine Natchtmusik’ x3
Translates to ‘A little night music’ - art that was once individual and magical has become repetitive and meaningless, modernity is destructive and reductionist.
PH - ‘giving me no options under the guise of countless alternatives’
structural parallel of realisation, exposes the reality of restriction that modern life presents.
PH - ‘robot transfers me to himself’
modern life presenst an inescapable cycle, any route has the same result.
PH - ‘my translator says, // This means your call is not important to them’
inner voice has a realisation of the reality he is in, devalued by technology.
PH - ‘only way you can now meet your needs is by looting’
nonconformity becomes criminality, social outcast or conform.
PH - ‘Please Hold. Please grow old. Please grow cold.’
Caesura, monosyllabism, internal rhyme - inner voice becomes robotic to fit a robotic world.
PH - ‘cold.’ ‘cold.’ ‘hold.’ (RHYME OF FINAL TERCET)
monotonous and detatched. CONFORMITY.
PH - ‘You can say Yes, No, Repeat, or Menu’
repetition and listing, illusion of extended choice.
Poet of On Her Blindness?
Adam Thorpe
OHB - Structure?
couplets until final, single line stanza - represents the relationship between mother and son.
free verse - honest and conversational tone.
OHB - ‘like a Roman’
Simile, rejects the idea of stoicism in the face of health-related adversity. It is archaic and overly dramatic.
OHB - ‘one shouldn’t say it. One should hide’
repetition - emphasises the taboo of admitting the struggle and extent of social obligations.
OHB - ‘in a Paris restaurant, still not finding // the food on the plate’
sophisticated setting juxtaposes the humiliating action, blindness is a struggle and undignified.
OHB - ‘I’d bump myself off’
colloquial and honest, trying to joke to cover up the bleak reality.
OHB - ‘bumping into walls like a dodgem’
simile - coping mechanism of dark humour, societal need to ‘play down’ the true level of suffering.
OHB - ‘as blank as stone’
simile - demonstrates the level of suffering of the mother, life is tough, cold, and bland.
OHB - ‘visit exhibitions, admire films, sink into television // while looking the wrong way’
illusion, she goes through the motions of life but can’t truly live.
OHB - ‘it was up to us to believe’
Not facing the truth, even in the end - conscious choice to avoid the pain of reality.
