Good afternoon and welcome to Poetry Week. Today I will be talking to you about the topic of urban life in Australian poetry. During this presentation, I will discuss the poem Tree in the City by Thomas Shapcott and its representation of urban life. This will then be followed by how the poetic devices of metaphor and imagery are used in the poem and finally, I will compare it to the taught poem Phasing Out the Mangroves. I will start by looking at the poem called Tree in the City by Thomas Shapcott and what is revealed about suburban life by it. Initially, the poem appears to be depicting a positive outlook on suburban life, and its integration with nature, and having not lost the connection to it that children have had for years. While remaining ambiguous in its ideas, upon closer inspection, there are numerous occasions where the poet is insinuating how nature is fading out as the buildings of urban life take over. As can be seen here (the screen) by the highlighted words, the poem focuses on the restrictions and changes that urban life has made to nature, as well as how important this fading element is. For example, “small span” refers to how the city branches of …show more content…
Although done in different ways, it can be seen clearly that both poems focus on the rapidly increasing disappearance of nature in urban life. Shapcott’s Tree in the City gives an ambiguous approach to this topic, stating that however small, nature is still present and a prominent factor of childhood, by giving examples of how children spend their time with the tree. On the other hand, Adamson’s Phasing Out the Mangroves paints a purely negative representation of the mangroves being taken over by the “concrete geometries” of the city, replacing nature with the modern technologies that we have come to live with today. Despite these differences, both poems are equally as effective in producing a sense of guilt in the
The Wild Trees is a book by Richard Preston about a small group of botanists that are curious about what the canopy of the redwood holds. The redwood tree comes from the sequoia family and is the largest single organism in the world. A group of people that include Michael Taylor, Steve Sillett, and Marie Antoine. Michael Taylor came from a wealthy family. His father did not want Michael to grow up spoiled. He tried to raise him as a middle class child who did not get whatever he wanted. Eventually when Michael went to college he did not pass his classes and decided to change his major. Michaels father was not very happy about this and gave him one last chance. Eventually when the time came again, Michael did not complete his classes for the
Both speakers ply nature as setting to express their emotion.the speaker in the poem “The Lonely Land”apply “cedar and jagged fir’s action” as setting to express the lonely environment of the poem and the negative attitude.
Bruce Dawe is one of the most inspirational and truthful poets of our time. Born in 1930, in Geelong, most of Dawe’s poetry concerns the common person – his poems are a recollection on the world and issues around him. The statement ‘The poet’s role is to challenge the world they see around them.’ Is very true for Bruce Dawe, as his main purpose in his poetry was to depict the unspoken social issues concerning the common Australian suburban resident. His genuine concern for these issues is
“She would suffer all the rest of her life every time that she remembered that she had not smiled back,” (234). This sentence, written by Betty Smith, author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, is in reference to when protagonist, Francie Nolan, had not allowed herself to smile back at a seemingly bad girl named Joanna because she thought she was not meant to be friendly with people like her. What struck me the most about the instance Francie says she will suffer all her life, is the almost immediate guilty feeling that Francie portrays after she saw Joanna being taunted later on. Francie seems to think that in that particular moment, not smiling back at Joanna was one of the worst things she could have
Baldwin gives a vivid sketch of the depressing conditions he grew up on in Fifth Avenue, Uptown by using strong descriptive words. He makes use of such word choices in his beginning sentences when he reflects back to his house which is now replaced by housing projects and “one of those stunted city trees is
Poetry is an art form that has been used to express certain messages or beliefs, and can potentially change a reader’s view on a subject. Suburban Sonnet, written by Gwen Harwood has a lot of social commentary and is speaking to you about a lot of things that it feels are important. It is looking to make a lot of points about Australian society and the sacrifice of having children and of living a suburban lifestyle. Gwen Harwood’s ‘Suburban Sonnet’ is a fourteen line poem with strong values of urban Australia.
Robert Grey is an imagist who paints with words. Using imagery in his poems, Grey is able to visually communicate emotions and ideas. His poetry is concerned with the urbanisation effects on Australian nature and changes it brought within the lifestyle. This is metaphorically expressed in the poem ‘Journey: The North Coast’ as he dwells on the sheer beauty that can be found in the natural world in contrast to the alienated environments manufactured by men. In contrast to the idea of modernisation, Grey also expresses values of love and respect for the environment and nature through the physical and emotional journey. Additionally, the idea of Australian landscapes and strong sense of
The book "The Baron in the Trees," by Italo Calvino is about the Baron Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò, or simply known as Cosimo, spent almost all of his life living up in the trees of Ombrosa after refusing to eat the disgusting plate of snails that his sister had made for the family dinner one night when he was twelve. Cosimo kept to his word "I'll never come down again!" (Calvino 13) and he never set foot on the ground again. Cosimo was not bound to one tree though; he was able to travel to many parts of Ombrosa by tree, and lead a very adventurous and full life. The main point of my essay is to discuss the ongoing relationship between Cosimo and the environment.
“[E]nvironment is a tremendous thing in the world, and frequently shapes lives regardless.” (“Although it’s origins…”) Stephen Crane was influenced to write his 1893 novella, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, as a result of his religious family, the secrecy to publish a novel that reveals the reality and impurity of the real world and from the impact of needy, urban landscapes that ended realism and began naturalism.
and that he believes them. The poem also translates into how living in the city is toilsome and that the city is unrelenting. On the other hand it shows how the city can be prosperous and happy with the city’s disadvantages. in the second half of the poem it’s telling how nomatter what is wrong with the city, the people are still proud of who they are.
Initially presented as an autobiography by a Native American, The Education of Little Tree perpetuates the stereotypical roles of Native Americans as written by a seemingly former white supremist. At a first read – and should the reader be unaware of the truth about the author ‘Forrest’ Carter – it does not seem as though The Education of Little Tree does anything inherently racist. If anything, the story appears to be sympathetic to the plight of protagonist Little Tree, a five-year-old orphaned Native American boy, and his grandparents for the displacement they have from their culture into a society that does not accept them and perpetually oppresses them.
In Allen Johnson’s “The Forest, The Trees, and The One Thing”, he expresses that in order to understand sociology we need to be able to understand the relationship between biography and history. To explain this, Johnson uses five rules to sociology called the sociological imagination. These rules explain how an individual relates to social systems.
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.
A little pondering suggests that the poem has a keen focus on the Australian environment. The poet is successful to grab our attention with descriptive explanation in the line in the
The urban environment that I live in is my nature. My nature is filled with birds, cats, grass, and flowers. It may not be as abundant with mother nature’s resources compared to most places, but it still provides me with an experience of nature. Nature is not limited to just what we see anymore. However, you must use your senses to truly achieve the full experience of nature. In nature, you must smell the wonderful odors from the flowers, you should use your sight and observe the natural beauty of the ever-changing sky, touch the rough and jagged bark of the trees, and hear the spectacular songs of the birds that fly above you.