Comparing Poems for English

Comparing poems for English literature – example with details filled in

Heaney – Blackberry Clarke – The Field Whitman – Patrolling Hopkins – Inversnaid Picking Mouse Barnegat Subject Write a short description (one Picking Cutting the hay – a A stormy night on the A beautiful place in sentence) of what each blackberries field mouse is killed New Jersey coast Scotland poem is about. Theme What are the Hope and The power and The beauty of nature main ideas in the poems? disappointment – The fragility of natural danger of the natural and why we need things never live up and human life world wild places to our hopes Meaning Is each poem Fairly clear move Less obvious – subject Moves from straightforward or from optimism to Very straightforward changes from hay- description of ambiguous in meaning? pessimism – – nature is shown as cutting, to wounded wonders of nature to What do you think it blackberry picking powerful and means? mouse, to worries reflection on why we as a metaphor for majestic about children need to preserve it other things Viewpoint What is the Adult recalls Parent concerned for Observer filled with Observer filled with viewpoint? childhood children awe wonder experience Tone and mood Shares Whitman’s Comment on each Exhilarated – the awe but in a more poem’s tone and mood. Reflective and Highly serious and poem is full of raw delighted way – a Does either poem make philosophical concerned any use of humour or natural energy much more joyful irony? experience of nature Interesting details Bluebeard – a Reference to news – Images are all literal The poet captures Comment on any details sinister reference, war in Europe – they may be and exploits the local which you find since his hands (Yugoslavia) makes symbolic of other words for natural interesting in the poems were sticky with the poet fearful and things but are not features blood of his wives sympathetic metaphors Structure and form Three stanzas of Describe the structure Two halves Three stanzas No set metre but a description and one and form of the poems – correspond to ideas correspond to pattern of stresses – pleading for saving look at such things as of hope and sequence of ideas which Hopkins also the wilderness. rhyme, metre/rhythm, stanza form disappointment Loose iambic metre does Anapaestic metre and alliteration Key images Look for the key images in each poem. In each case say Different kinds of “Bones brittle as “Weeds and…  what the image blackberries and the mouse ribs” “Dim weird forms” wilderness” sum up is juice – leading to “Neighbour turned all the other images  what it means “rat-grey fungus”. stranger”  how it works in the poem Other technical Lots of features Are there any monosyllables, Every line ends with other features, such as especially nouns Lots of sound FX None really a present participle sound FX, contrast, (clot, blob, knot, and wordplay colloquialism or verb (“-ing” word) wordplay? boots) often at the end of a line Personal response Give This poem speaks Gives an older Quite easy to read but Could be an advert your own response to the the truth about person’s viewpoint – it’s not much more for the Scottish poems, with reasons things not living up appeals to feminine than a list of verbs Tourist Board to hopes side