Anthology and unseen poetry
In this paper
- remember to compare
- Assess the unseen and make comparisons not based on what you know of the
anthology poem
- Look at both with fresh eyes
Poems I find hard
1. An easy passage - Copus
2. Lammas hireling - Duhig
3. Heaney - Out of the Bag
4. Feaver - The Gun
Poems that haven’t come up yet
Modern
1. Jenkins ‘effects’
2. Morrissey’s ‘genetics’
3. Thorpe’s ‘on her blindness’
4. O’driscoll’s ‘please hold’
5. Doshi’s ‘the deliverer’
6. Duhig’s ‘the Lammas hireling’
1. Agbabe - Eat Me
Message
- critiquing women having to conform to a certain body type
- highlights the emotional complexity and slow violence of domestic abuse, as well as
the dehumanizing power of sexist objectification.
- Become disempowered but then empowered at the end
- Fetishised only for the purpose of his enjoyment
Themes
Form + structure
- regular structure
- Tercets - like the 3 layers of cake
- Organised structure - mimics controlling nature of partner, inescapable
- End stopped stanzas - constraining
Analysis patterns
- images of being big - comical, ugly, grotesque
- Humorous tone - hyperbolic in the storyline
- Images of colonisation
2. Armitage – Chainsaw Versus the Pampas Grass
Message
- about the conflict between nature and man
, - Chainsaw - man made item , tries to cut the pampas grass, but fails and ends up
back in the shed where it started
- Nature ultimately wins
Themes
- power
- Conflict
- Nature/man + nature
- Opposition
Form + structure
- cyclical structure - chainsaw starts and ends in the shed
Analysis patterns
- chainsaw as inebriated, drunk, uncontrollable
- Chainsaw as stereotypically masculine
- Glorification of chainsaw - primitive
- Description of pampas grass as overly flamboyant - mocking tone
- Pampas grass as a warrior, regal, opulent
- Chainsaw as enjoying the destruction
- Pampas grass as alive
- Pampas grass as more feminine compared to masculine chainsaw
- Desperation of chainsaw to annihilate
3. Barber - Material
Message
- sort of a poem about grief because she’s almost coping with the death of her mum
through these memories
- Grief, remembrance
- How things change over generations
- Missing her mum
- Motherhood
- Childhood memories - she describes them fondly
- Reliance we have in our mums
- Everything about her childhood is described vividly - desire to remember that point in
her life
- Detailed, vivid
Themes
Form + structure
- iambic tetrameter - rhythm has regularity - comfortable, comforting. Iambic rhythm
has a sense of moving forward, pushing
- all stanzas are 8 lines except the one about her dancing which is 9 lines
- Enjambed lines - memory kind of runs away and runs free. This contrasts to the line
‘nostalgia only makes me old’ where she remembers her age. She cuts off the
memory and stops herself from remembering
Analysis patterns
- vivid images = memories
- Final stanza introduces her mums death
- Images of the speaker’s mother, emotions, objects bought / from shops
In this paper
- remember to compare
- Assess the unseen and make comparisons not based on what you know of the
anthology poem
- Look at both with fresh eyes
Poems I find hard
1. An easy passage - Copus
2. Lammas hireling - Duhig
3. Heaney - Out of the Bag
4. Feaver - The Gun
Poems that haven’t come up yet
Modern
1. Jenkins ‘effects’
2. Morrissey’s ‘genetics’
3. Thorpe’s ‘on her blindness’
4. O’driscoll’s ‘please hold’
5. Doshi’s ‘the deliverer’
6. Duhig’s ‘the Lammas hireling’
1. Agbabe - Eat Me
Message
- critiquing women having to conform to a certain body type
- highlights the emotional complexity and slow violence of domestic abuse, as well as
the dehumanizing power of sexist objectification.
- Become disempowered but then empowered at the end
- Fetishised only for the purpose of his enjoyment
Themes
Form + structure
- regular structure
- Tercets - like the 3 layers of cake
- Organised structure - mimics controlling nature of partner, inescapable
- End stopped stanzas - constraining
Analysis patterns
- images of being big - comical, ugly, grotesque
- Humorous tone - hyperbolic in the storyline
- Images of colonisation
2. Armitage – Chainsaw Versus the Pampas Grass
Message
- about the conflict between nature and man
, - Chainsaw - man made item , tries to cut the pampas grass, but fails and ends up
back in the shed where it started
- Nature ultimately wins
Themes
- power
- Conflict
- Nature/man + nature
- Opposition
Form + structure
- cyclical structure - chainsaw starts and ends in the shed
Analysis patterns
- chainsaw as inebriated, drunk, uncontrollable
- Chainsaw as stereotypically masculine
- Glorification of chainsaw - primitive
- Description of pampas grass as overly flamboyant - mocking tone
- Pampas grass as a warrior, regal, opulent
- Chainsaw as enjoying the destruction
- Pampas grass as alive
- Pampas grass as more feminine compared to masculine chainsaw
- Desperation of chainsaw to annihilate
3. Barber - Material
Message
- sort of a poem about grief because she’s almost coping with the death of her mum
through these memories
- Grief, remembrance
- How things change over generations
- Missing her mum
- Motherhood
- Childhood memories - she describes them fondly
- Reliance we have in our mums
- Everything about her childhood is described vividly - desire to remember that point in
her life
- Detailed, vivid
Themes
Form + structure
- iambic tetrameter - rhythm has regularity - comfortable, comforting. Iambic rhythm
has a sense of moving forward, pushing
- all stanzas are 8 lines except the one about her dancing which is 9 lines
- Enjambed lines - memory kind of runs away and runs free. This contrasts to the line
‘nostalgia only makes me old’ where she remembers her age. She cuts off the
memory and stops herself from remembering
Analysis patterns
- vivid images = memories
- Final stanza introduces her mums death
- Images of the speaker’s mother, emotions, objects bought / from shops
