Analysis Of Coal By Audre Lorde 's Poem, Coal

However, the poem has fluidity despite its apparent scarcity of rhyme. After examining the alteration of syllables in each line, a pattern is revealed in this poem concerning darkness. The first nine lines alternate between 8 and 6 syllables. These lines are concerned, as any narrative is, with exposition. These lines set up darkness as an internal conflict to come. The conflict intensifies in lines 10 and 11 as we are bombarded by an explosion of 8 syllables in each line. These lines present the conflict within one's own mind at its most desperate. After this climax, the syllables in the last nine lines resolve the conflict presented. In these lines, Dickinson presents us with an archetypal figure that is faced with a conflict: the “bravest” hero. These lines present the resolution in lines that alternate between 6 and 7 syllables. Just as the syllables decrease, the falling action presents us with a final insight. This insight discusses how darkness is an insurmountable entity that, like the hero, we must face to continue “straight” through “Life” (line 20).

Now that you have read the poem and considered the meanings of the lines, answer the following questions in a Word doc or in your assignment window:

This book is full of stories of the men who descend into the mines, and their women and children who wait for them to come out safe at the end of each shift are the subject of a, poet Diane Gilliam Fisher’s collection, Kettle Bottom. Set in 1920–21, a period of violent and brutal act against miners known as the West Virginia Mine Wars, the topic of the poems in Kettle Bottom. The stories includes the miners, their children, and most importantly their wives who suffered the consequences of their husband’s deeds. In Kettle Bottom, Diane Gilliam Fisher probes the emotional truth of coal camp history, and then extracts it, holds its darkness in the light of her brilliant poetic lines. Racism, Blood sheds, economic injustice, inhumane way to treat

As a young lady, Ayn’s father oft told her about why it is so crucial for one to have self, and to be narcissistic, rather than to be selfless. Day after day he would continually remind her “We are not born to do what other people want us to do” (In Her Own Words). These words profoundly affect, not only Ayn’s writing, but her behavior as well. Consequently, Ayn is one of the most self-optimistic personage, one will ever behold. In one interview she even spoke, “I was the most brilliant” (In Her Own Words); nonetheless, she knew of her grandeur and was not reluctant to declare it. Although one generally portrays being egotistic as a negative element, it is actually the key to obtaining complete ecstasy. Thereby, Ayn concluded to address individualism, versus collectivism, in a manner that was both compelling, yet transparent to the reader; thus, creating the character “Equality 7-2521”. Today’s society expects one to relinquish to what humanity covets of him or her. More times than not, this is due to one’s lack of knowledge on collectivism, rather than the fact he or she prefers it over individualism. Even those who genuinely favor communism, do not grasp how precarious, and fatal it is; nevertheless, Ayn wrote Anthem, to such an extreme, in an attempt to augment awareness, as it must become a public interest. Individuals of

Binary Oppositions appear in multiple forms within this poem. We find the pairs of conflicting words and the readers are expected sort out which words have the ideal interpretation to the poem. Most of these pairs are descriptions about the pebble, the “coldness (line 9) and the “false warmth” (line 14) skew our interpretation of this pebble. Pebbles are naturally cold but the text tries to resolve this fact by presenting warmth to the pebble. Yet the pebble did not produce this warmth itself, a living creature is required to generate the heat and to transfer it to the pebble. Also, the pebble will not be able to maintain the warmth once the heat source is taken away, thus “false” warmth. The pebble does have the potential to harness this warmth so is it really a cold being or a warm one? These conflicting ideas help to unravel the validity of the poem. The same can be done with the words “coldness” (line 9) and “ardour” (line 9), or its “fierce or burning heat” (Oxford English Dictionary). These words are given to the reader in the same line yet they hold completely unique ideas to the pebble. Is ardour heat that the pebble theoretically can hold or is it a kind of burning heat that a person feels due to emotions? A reader could also question how a pebble “cannot be tamed” (line 15) yet also be “mindful of its limits” (line 4). These are all human qualities which are getting placed onto the pebble, and due to the limitations of pebbles we can understand these binary

The two Browning poems, ‘Porphyria’s Lover’ and ‘My Last Duchess’ were written to convey to the reader how women were treated in that era; as possession, as assets. Both of these poems can be read from different points of view and they also both are what is

Although this is a short poem, there are so many different meanings that can come from the piece. With different literary poetic devices such as similes, imagery, and symbolism different people take away different things from the poem. One of my classmates saw it as an extended metaphor after searching for a deeper connection with the author. After some research on the author, we came to learn that the

The poem suddenly becomes much darker in the last stanza and a Billy Collins explains how teachers, students or general readers of poetry ‘torture’ a poem by being what he believes is cruelly analytical. He says, “all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it”. Here, the poem is being personified yet again and this brings about an almost human connection between the reader and the poem. This use of personification is effective as it makes the

For all of its awkwardness Whitman’s poem is vibrant and a joy to read, with a dictionary close at hand. He makes the steam driven locomotive come to life on the page with the “ponderous side-bars, parallel and connecting rods, gyrating” (Whitman line 5) you can see the metal violently swinging back and forth. When he describes the thick, purple hazed, smoke rising from the machine one can almost feel the oily vapors on the face and nostrils. As the “warning ringing bell … sounds (sic) its notes” the reader can’t help but hear it in the distance, and at the end as the machine “Launch’d o’er the praries wide, across the lakes, To the free skies unpent and glad and strong” (Whitman lines 24-25) the same reader can glimpse the ghost train gliding into the sunset.

Second, striking similes are used throughout the whole poem. The speaker does not content himself with using age-old phrases or comparisons. His similes are unique and gripping. "Like old beggars under sacks," "like a man in fire or lime," and "like a devil's sick of sin," help to add vivid mental pictures to the poem. The soldier's uniforms are ripped and threadbare from all the fighting, and they are so exhausted that they bend over as they walk. The man that breathed the mustard gas is in such incredible pain that all he can do is jerk about as if he were on fire. After a while, the gas causes his face to sag until he resembles something from the horrors of hell. The speaker's similes are ones that cause the reader to stop and just think about what is being described

Hayden utilizes diction to set a dark and solemn tone throughout the poem. Like the various examples of imagery, there is also a strong use of underlying symbolism. In the first stanza, the words “cold” (1. 2) and “fires blaze” (1. 5) are used, which introduces a conflict. This is emphasized in the second stanza when the word “cold” (2. 1) is used again, later followed by the word “warm” (2. 2). In the last stanza, the father eventually “had driven out the cold” (3. 2). Yet the father had not ridden the house of the cold air until the end of the poem, which symbolizes how it took his son several years later to recognize the behaviors in which his father conveyed his love for him.

Lorde’s poem “Coal” tackles political views expressed from her experience as a Black feminist as she continues to struggle against labels and stereotypes. The poem is free-verse and has no definite rhyme or meter, except in this poem, there is little rhyme. This poem shows her personality and her willingness to be part of society’s norms. In the poem, the lines 3 and 4 (Lorde), “From the earth’s inside./ There are many kinds of open”, she mentions that she was trapped between the layers of the earth and her true self was underneath all of the labels and stereotypes (representing as the layers), given to her race by

It is certainly true that one of the distinguishing features of poetic texts is the use of figurative or non-literal language – this essay highlights the fact that metaphors do contribute to the understanding of a poem. Ted Hughes’ poem, Sketching a Thatcher, is loaded with vivid imagery and ample metaphorical constructions which aids to validate this fact. In order to uncover the message behind this poem, one must take a closer look at the arguments, focus expressions and tenor/vehicle constructions of at least six local metaphorical constructions

Judith Wright extensively uses the structure of her poems to convey many ideas and themes. The structure of a poem is crucial to delivering its key message as it determines both the tone and how the poem is read. She shows the reader throughout the poem how the dust, which is symbolic of the barren emptiness that has “overtaken… dreams” of beauty and comfort as well as financial dependence, will consume the earth if the current environment is not conserved and protected. Wright’s use of title emphasizes this point in the clearest way she can and re-enforces her major concept to the audience. Another example of how structure is used in this poem is juxtaposition. The first and second stanzas are strategically placed next to each other because of their greatly opposing descriptions. In stanza one, the new world of dust and wind, many negative adjectives are used, such as “harsh”, “grief” and “steel-shocked”. Stanza two, which talks about the past, contains a wide range of positive adjectives such as “good”, “kinder” and “beautiful”.

Mary Ellen Lamb 's exploration of Sidney 's Defense of Poesy notes early modern cultural anxieties around poetry 's potential power to effeminise and infantilize. Sidney challenges contemporary accusations against poetry, existing on concerns for the morality and virtuosity of its audiences. However Lamb supplies an additional stance regarding the masculine intellectual ideology of the Tudor education system. This suggests that poetry halts the indoctrination of young adult males into an emerging capitalistic England. Lamb approaches these claims through Sidney 's gendered language, with particular focus on his ‘nurse of abuse ' passage. Moreover, examinations of grammar school culture, and readings of textual allusions in Defense contribute to wider discussions on the role of appropriated masculine poetry.