A commentary of the poem "What Were They Like?" The poem, "What Were They Like?" by Denise Levertov was written to shed light on the forgotten culture of the Vietnamese, a culture that ... "their light hearts turned to stone." (__) This metaphor is comparing the objects in which people used to light their way and stone. Their hearts were bright and always full of joy and hope before the war. Once it was over and everything they ever knew was gone their hearts turned hard and cold. The fire of ... this poem is, "But after the children were killed, there were no more buds." (__) This metaphor i...

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... these insights are shown through figurative language and expression. Many poets use metaphorical terms and personification to covey their ideas in a unique and interesting way. Poetry offers insights into social commentary, in particular the way we treat our world. Many poems are written about our uncaring society. I believe Bruce Dawe wrote "Search and Destroy" with this idea in mind. The poem ... not show any respect. Dransfield's poem suggests the difficulties of being a poet, and as he says, " to be a poet in Australia is the ultimate commitment." It presents insights into social co...

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... the "bat or the rat or the stoat" and the "bat" and "rat" internal rhyme create a sort of spitting sound which fits the imagery of these animals perfectly. The line "club-footed ghoul" creates an image of an awful person that haunts and hassles you, with an eerie, low moan-like sound created by the assonance. What the unborn child sees ... ...

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... : Are there metaphors/similes/personification? Are they successful? How do the effect the theme/setting/plot/character development? Symbols: structural/incidental/literal/figurative, concrete/abstract Commentary Organization - Introductory paragraph - Identify type of prose and author's intent - Identify voice and tone of persona (if relevant) - Focus on central idea - Primary emphasis / ... direction of your commentary Body of Essay - Don't just list points. Use evidence to contribute to central effect / idea identified in intro. - Organize logically. - Option A: By technique: e.g. ......

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... understanding the poem. The title doesn't give details about the author and also does not allude to other key themes in the poem, which will be discussed later in this commentary. The focus of The Author To Her Book is seems to be the narrator's inability to find the writing perfection that he or she seeks. The narrator describes his work ... ...

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Commentary: "I sit and look out" and "Polphyria's lover" Words, lines, sentences, meter. These are the basics of poetry. However these characteristics alone are not enough to make a poem. A poem's magic lies ... ...

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In the dark poem "Strange Fruit," author Joy Harjo, explores the difficulties that minorities in the world. Throughout the poem, there is a reoccurring theme of hatred and violence, personified through antagonists, the 'Klu Klux Klan'. The author ... the last two stanzas, the poem reaches its climax, and the author reveals just how gruesome humanity can be. Unlike the song by Billie Holiday, also called 'Strange Fruit', Joy Harjo does not identify the 'strange fruit' in question, as a symbol of racial injustice. Instead, she beautifies this strange fruit making it the opposite...

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... interpreter of dreams, Joseph, who read dreams for Pharaoh (see  Genesis, Book 41), nor Macrobius, the late Roman author who wrote a famous (in Chaucer's day) commentary on  Cicero's  Dream of Scipio, would have the skill to read the fantastic dream the narrator had that night. Analysis Burying the body of a relative with proper ... of Joseph from the Hebrew Bible would have been known to most people through stories, but the reference to Macrobius's Latin commentary on the earlier Latin writer Cicero's  Dream of Scipio  was erudite. The fact that both of the dreams described in the...

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... starts with the death of Hallam and ends with happiness. The poem covers a period of time about three years. In the poem his grief from his friends death end with joy. "In Memoriam" came under attack against G.K Chesterton when hr wrote "Victorian Compromise," in 1913. T.S Eliot appreciates Tennyson up through "In Memoriam" in 1916 he wrote in his essays that it ... Authorian poems. "Locksley Hall" was a autobiographical narrative that was dealing with the lives of marriages and that was one of his most popular poems during his life time. Tennyson's bad luck seems to return just as the ...

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... from double vision; however Ben, on the other hand, is ecstatic with the situation. He finds joy in experiencing double vision while others would sulk in their misery. The theme of double and a young boy finding joy in unusual situations is found throughout the poem. The sonnet states: Their ordeal over, now the ... so, when the patch came off, they bought the toy   he'd wanted most. He held it high. "Two cars!" he cried; and drove himself from joy to joy. Two baby sisters. . .one was enough of Clare, but who could complain?-considering that another   woman had stepped forward to take c...

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... died. It gives a negative view of war but at the same time, it gives us feeble reasons why people joined the frontline. Charge of the light brigade' is more like a commentary, while Disabled' is more like a story. Disabled' is about a young man enrolling into the frontline to impress his girlfriend, and then he went to war and was scarred for rest ... the stanzas. There is not a regular shape. There is not much of a tempo or rhythm. It is like this because it is meant to be read as a story, rather than a commentary. Owen uses techniques like contras tic memories and this is effective be...

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... Ay, in the very temple of Delight 25 Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung. 30 Analysis: John ... Keats "Ode On Melancholy" John Keats, a Romantic poet, reveals in his lyric poem "Ode On Melancholy- a basic phenomenon: joy and delight is always accompanied by grief and melancholy. Lyric poem means the poem is relatively short and there is one speaker expressing his thoughts and feelings. ... 10) will be...

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... "Lapis Lazuli" is that all forms of art can surpass the tragedies experienced within the world; therefore making it gay. Yeats uses his theme of tragic joy throughout the poem, and often in his works toward the last few years of his life. As an artist of literature Yeats understands he faces death like every ... good and bad. In the first stanza we see he believes that those who give credence to the political world will only end up with tragedy, and no joy. The "hysterical women" he speaks of are those who have forsaken the arts, "sick of the palette and fiddle-bow." Specifically, he is ...

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... doesn't know its cold unless he remembers what was hot. Keats' life was full of disease, death, despair, and a daily awareness of pain; a daily awareness of joy. His father died, his mother died. He took care of his brother, Tom, who also died. They all died of consumption. However, the Romantic in Keats saw ... deep upon her peerless eyes."" You have to find the beauty in her, her being melancholy, and see that with her comes joy. "She dwells with Beauty "Beauty that must die;/ And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips ."" In the third stanza, Keats tells the reader that they all are part ...

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... all modes of death lead to the next life. Nothing could give Donne quite the same outlook on death as he achieves through this cosmological imagery. The joy and dread of passing through straits from the known world to the unknown are capture in the -south west discover for which one must die; and the two ... his own fill to the -currants bearing him along to that sudden surge from -die at the end of the second stanza to -I joy beginning the third. And, even so, the -joy is ambiguous: joy at seeing an end to suffering, perhaps, which is picked up in the painfully direct question "What sha...

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... the state of perfection similar to that of God. It was the state of man before the fall of Adam and Eve, the state of incessant joy and a mind which knows the virtues of delight. According to Blake the children were not born condamned but were the owners of innocent souls which were ... Little Lamb, who made thee? and caretaker Gave thee life, and bid thee feed Gave thee clothing of delight Gave thee such a tender voice The matter joy also present in the following verses, Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice is common in the whole collection of the Songs of ... Inn...

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... decay, and then death, which is usually destroyed by love. Macklem also finds that many of Housman's poems grow out of the feeling that belief in the joy and worth of the moment is an illusion. At times Macklem finds that there is a debate between life and death. He finds Housman has a big emphasis ... life is most intense. Macklem says, Housman's poetry forms a unit of emotional, not intellectual logic. It begins with a vivid response to the sensuous joy of the moment expressed in the symbols of love, friendship, spring, and above all, youth.? However, he feels it is cut or ended by ....

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... . Now the reader is taken by Clare into his adventure. What then appears is not a figure, but a sound. Every morning the cheerful singing of a thrush makes the poet full of joy. The thrush seems to cheer for every new day. The reader may wonder what makes the thrush so happy. Then it comes to the close-up of the thrush. Everyday ... things related to sun everywhere in the poem: "sunrise", "shining", "bright", "sunny hours", "sunshine". Sun and light are the symbols of warmth, joy and hope. Here the poet indicates that the birth of new lives is full of joy and hope, but is due to the warm...

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... performances are then judges on a numeric scale by previously selected members of the audience. " In 1985, a construction worker and poet named Marc Smith started a poetry reading series at a Chicago jazz club, the "Get Me High Lounge, " trying to discover a way to breathe life into the open mic, in a poetry format. In 1986, Smith approached the owner of "Green Mill, " with a plan ... to host a weekly poetry cabaret on the club's slow Sunday nights. Jemilo (owner of the Jazz club) welcomed him, and on July 25, the Uptown Poetry Slam was born. Smith drew on baseball and bridge terminolog...

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... tone and subject matter of Hughes' poetry can be linked to certain points in history, and his life. The youth of Hughes is brought out by his poem "Harlem Night Club-, a piece that describes living in the moment. Often children do not consider the consequences of their actions; they act on instinct and desire. Hughes might have been twenty-seven when ... he wrote this poem, but the spirited, upbeat tempo of a schoolboy is present in his style (Emanuel 127). "Harlem Night Club- is unique in that it describes the integration of blacks and whites in a positive tone. Evidence of Hughes' you...

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... underwent a drastic change in style. She was a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Society of Midland Authors, Cliff Dwellers Club, Tavern Club, and Caxton Club. In her lifetime, she won many awards including names one of the ten women of the year in Mademoiselle magazine, American Academy of Arts and Letters Award for creative ... ...

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... habitude in French – is appealing to all humans, even if it contradicts with what reason tells them. Perhaps, this is because of the comfort and joy we feel, which make particular habits preferable to us in the first place, and because of unwillingness and implausibility of changing the habits that arise from human ... together, but rather enjoy the unexpected romantic situation created by the shortcut and the sense of secrecy, which is surrounding the silent and dark house. The joy of performing the habits might as well be the reason why the "we" in the poem perform them, knowing the...

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... use them. Represents that the father has overcome his doubts and uncertainty, and he had already found answers to his questions. There were four contrasts throughout the poem: "Joy" with Benoni (son of my suffering), "lament" and "envie", "lent" with "pay" and "sinne" with "hope". The meaning of "son of my right ... early age. The use of polysemy, differences the narrator from the poet. There a meaning behind the text. In line one "child of my right hand and joy" is referring to the name, Benjamin which means "son of my right hand". It also alludes to Genesis, the story of Benoni, which ...

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... hours in the never-ending trail of soot. In short, they lived their lives in complete darkness, with no joyful moments of childhood other than the joy created by their young, innocent minds. They were repressed and taken advantage of by the adults who "owned" them, and led a life of poor quality ... their lives are miserable. I find it important to mention that because children are naturally innocent, and innocence is pure and white, it enables them to find joy in the darkest of moments. This is the beauty of children. In the first two lines of the third stanza in poem 2, this is clearl...

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... could be trying to make up an excuse to gain sympathy from the readers(line 14). In the second stanza she utters, "I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized/Your luck," which implies that she does not even know if abortion is murder(lines 15-16). This aids the claim that the speaker is not really sorry because she does not ... could be trying to make up an excuse to gain sympathy from the readers(line 14). In the second stanza she utters, "I have said, Sweets, if I sinned, if I seized/Your luck," which implies that she does not even know if abortion is murder(lines 15-16). This aids...

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