This Tiny Ruin In My Egg Judith Murray

Without, poetry you are no more than fodder, the fly-and-worm-speckled shit” (p. 57) He is saying that without poetry he is nothing. He believes that without the poetry he would not be the same person he is today. It saved him from the demons he had inside himself. Before finding poetry, he “fled from fatherhood and fell back into old addictions, drinking and drugs” (p.60).

As the narrator wakes up in the silence of the morning, a peaceful tone arises yet again until broken by the build up of unsaid words. The author uses the word “broken” specifically to demonstrate the destruction and disruption. In addition to this, the usage of words the author puts into the poem portrays a dark and serious tone. “And there is a silence of this morning / Which I have broken with my pen, / A silence that had piled up all night” (14-16). In order to reveal the tension of the overall silence, a serious and dark tone become a necessity. Readers experience the negative effects of silence on life. By using words like “broken” and “piled” it seems as if the unspoken words cause more destruction than wanted. Also, the lack of humor throughout the poem portrays that the scenarios described provoke readers to think, making the examples given come off more dark than anything. The peace at times becomes disrupted because of the involvement of such a dark and serious tone in order to emphasize clearly that the tension of these words built up over time, and left a more troublesome situation. The author also uses structural elements such as an enjambment. “The silence of the falling vase / Before it strikes the floor;” (13-14). By

The poem’s structure as a sonnet allows the speaker’s feelings of distrust and heartache to gradually manifest themselves as the poem’s plot progresses. Each quatrain develops and intensifies the speaker’s misery, giving the reader a deeper insight into his convoluted emotions. In the first quatrain, the speaker advises his former partner to not be surprised when she “see[s] him holding [his] louring head so low” (2). His refusal to look at her not only highlights his unhappiness but also establishes the gloomy tone of the poem. The speaker then uses the second and third quatrains to justify his remoteness; he explains how he feels betrayed by her and reveals how his distrust has led him

In the last stanza of the poem, this is a realization of the poem where a schoolgirl who is hiding underneath her desk understands the meaning of death, grief, and sadness unlike the society around her. When the schoolgirl says

Imperfection is once again alluded to with the entry of the poet into the broken world in order to trace the visionary company of love, its voice. This seems to directly refer to his creative process in seeking truth and beauty in his writing. It is also the most positive concept expressed in the poem thus far-- a wholly positive one, rather than the difficult process of destroying the obsolete mentioned before. However, unlike the mighty tower, this voice is an instant in the wind and not for long-- in other words, transitory. It is also mysterious and beyond the poets control, like the bells in the tower, as the poet admits he know[s] not whither [it is] hurled.

From the beginning of the poem, the reader can tell that the tone of the poem is consistent. There is no shift in tone, it’s simply sad and bitter. The father notices the innocence of his daughter and knows that there is bad luck that is coming for her future. The reader is able to see the father’s concern throughout the poem when he says that the “night’s slow poison” will change her. He knows that this issue cannot be changed, so he is doing what he can to avoid it becoming a bigger dilemma. By the end of the poem, it’s easy to notice that the father has become angry about the situation that is brought upon him. In the last two lines, the father decides that he doesn’t want to have children because of all the things he sees in their future, nothing but pain and suffering. His decision is expressed in the way he says “These speculations sour in the sun. I have

The poet then follows with, “But never my numb plunker fumbles, Misstrums me, or tries a new tune,” which reemphasizes how everything, no matter

The poem begins to address the state of an imperfectly built house to explain the difficulties of life to his potential wife. The first line by saying, ‘Nothing is plumb, level, or square.’ (Dugan 1) Although he is describing the imperfections of a house he is figuratively alluding to his personal mistakes. However, through the next lines the “studs are bowed, the joists are shaky by nature, no piece fits any other piece without a gap, or pinch, and bent nails, dance all over the surfacing, like maggots”(Dugan 2-6) is a grim aspect of the life and how nothing seems to be going right. To further explain why it is grim is because the imagery is like the house is about to feel apart and the speaker feels the same way in life. In a house if your nails are bent, studs are bowed, and the joists are shaky the foundation and structure is not well designed much like how the speaker feels like his life is caving in. Through the next metaphor like maggots it gives an image of decay and makes you feel a sense of desperation. The statement, ‘No piece fits any other piece without a gap or pinch’ continues to reveal how incomplete the speaker finds the way he has lived his life in lines three through five. In this section. The speaker is unsatisfied with everything about himself because there is not a single thing he feels is, perfect about his past, everything has been a disaster.

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

The speaker refers to the night as his acquaintance. This implies that the speaker has a lot of experience with the night, but has not become friends with it. Thus, because even the night, which has been alongside the speaker in comparison to anything or anyone else, is not a companion to the speaker, the idea of loneliness is enhanced. In addition, “rain” (2) is used to symbolize the speaker’s feelings of gloom and grief, because there is continuous pouring of the rain, which is unlikely to stop. In line 3, “city light” is used to convey the emotional distance between the speaker and society. Although the speaker has walked extensively, he has not yet interacted with anyone – thus distancing himself even further from society. Moreover, the moon, in lines 11 to 12, is used as a metaphor of the speaker’s feelings. The speaker feels extremely distant from society that he feels “unearthly.” The idea of isolation and loneliness in this poem is used as the theme of the poem; and the use of the setting and metaphors underscores the idea that the speaker feels abandoned from society.

Then, in the seventh stanza the narrator talks about when she finds the orange she has a “vision” of its “exotic land”(29-30). She goes on describe “the sun/ you swelled under/ the tree you grew from” (30-32). Using visual imagery, this setting sounds almost perfect. Kelly uses this imagery to suggest that because if the orange is perfect, it must have come from perfect beginnings. If the orange is her lover then, she is saying that because he is such a perfect person he must have had a wonder life leading up to this point. Another piece of imagery is when the narrator “[climbs]/ the hill, [looks] down/ on the town [they] live in/ with sunlight on [her] face” (41-44). This visual imagery is used to set a romantic scene in which the narrator is finally happy, and at peace that she has found the perfect orange. When the narrator looks down on her town it’s her looking back and reflecting on her life before she met her true love. The sun light on her face is the bright future she and her lover are going to have together. In the last stanza Kelly uses visual imagery to end the poem with the narrator “[walking] away/ [leaving] behind a trail/ of lamp-bright rind” (49-51). The visual imagery of her walking away leaving behind the rinds of the oranges is the way Kelly ends this poem. The narrator and her lover are walking away from their past lives and starting a new one

In the poem, on line five, he expressed that there were no millers any more. Which showed that the job, a miller, was slowly beginning to become less and less common because there was no need for them anymore, which was shown in stanza two, lines three and four. The style of this poem was a narrative. The subject of this poem was loss because in many line of this poem it expressed that, in stanza two line four, “there was a mealy fragrance of the past,” which means that there hadn’t been anyone up where the millers would stay for work in quiet a long time. Another example would be, in that same stanza line seven, “and what was hanging from a beam,” that these words would indicate that someone or something had passed. Finally, in the last stanza, lines two through eight; “she may have reasoned in the dark, that one way of the few there were, would hide her and would leave no mark: black water, smooth above the weir/like starry velvet in the night/though ruffled once, would soon appear/the same as ever to the sight.” These were that lines that indicated that she had also passed because of the loss of her husband. She felt that there was no way she could live without him and logically she couldn’t because he was the one providing for the family. I feel that the poet made this

In Graveyard Blues by Natasha Trethewey, the scene of her mother’s funeral is depicted. This was when Trethewey was 17, after her stepfather had killed her mother. Through the use of a controlled structuring of lineation throughout the poem, Trethewey conveys a calm tone. Also, by using word choices and repetition Trethewey is able to depict a state of grief. Finally, through the use of weather, she conveys a feeling of all – encompassing sadness.

Later on in the poem, we learn of the reason for this emotional distress the author is experiencing. The author longs for the touch of a “vanished hand/And the sound of a voice that is still” (11-12). These two eerie indicators point the reader towards the conclusion that the author has lost someone with whom he was close. The author continues to use the physical world to describe the one he has lost, emphasizing the presence of death within the poem. The combination of his inability to say what thoughts he has and his use of physical world descriptions for this missing person may indicate that he is still in the early stages of grief, attempting to fully comprehend his loss.

In this, one could see that the speaker might be talking about death: “And when at Night –“; and how the speaker prefers the comfort of his/her faith over the comforts of the world: “I guard My Master’s Head - / ‘Tis better than the Eider-Duck’s / Deep Pillow – to have shared-” (13-16). The tone of this poem ranges from emptiness, to fullness, to joy, to complete satisfaction, and one can follow this progression through the stanzas. In the beginning, the subject, or character, was flat