Poems
An admiration of ‘Children’ by Vicki Feaver
(819 words)
In this essay, I will explore how effectively Vicki Feaver, a female poet, conveys the influence of not only a mother but potentially all mothers. The poem presents the relationship between a loving parent and her child, exploring a mother’s desire to provide her child with an upbringing filled with love, care and ambition.
The first two tercets convey the image of a woman who, whether through careless accident or careful planning, believes that her child has been brought into this world to be loved. Feaver uses the pronoun ‘we’ to encompass mothers collectively, while also making the experience feel personal and intimate. The mother is present ‘where they began’, suggesting that the bond between mother and child begins from the moment of birth. The description of the children as ‘red mewling strangers’ acknowledges the unfamiliarity of a newborn while also conveying the child’s vulnerable appearance and persistent crying. Feaver develops this idea further with the phrase ‘they tear our threshold’, suggesting that the arrival of a child dramatically changes the mother’s life. The verb ‘tear’ conveys the magnitude and intensity of the disruption caused by a newborn. However, Feaver balances this sense of disruption with the tenderness of ‘immediately we love them’. The adverb ‘immediately’ emphasises how quickly and instinctively a mother’s love develops, presenting motherhood as a powerful and unconditional emotion.
The next three tercets explore the mother’s love as the child begins to grow. Feaver refers to other people commenting on the newborn, which conveys the genuine pride a mother may feel: ‘we smile and blush’. The verbs ‘smile’ and ‘blush’ suggest happiness, affection and perhaps even embarrassment at the attention given to the child. However, motherhood is not presented as entirely joyful, as the mother must also respond to the baby’s ‘cries’. Despite this, the child’s pain becomes the mother’s pain, demonstrating the depth of parental sympathy and compassion. The child’s emotions appear to become the mother’s emotions, suggesting that the mother becomes almost entirely responsive to the needs of her child. This is also demonstrated through the phrase ‘and hold them tightly’, which conveys both physical affection and emotional protection. The mother’s attachment becomes so strong that she experiences the child as ‘a lost part of ourselves’. This could suggest that having a child allows the mother to rediscover a powerful and innocent form of love that she may have lost during her own life. The phrase also implies that the child becomes an important part of the mother’s identity, reinforcing the strength of their emotional connection.
In the final five tercets, Feaver reflects on the mother’s influence while also encouraging her to consider her own life. The arrival of a new life creates the possibility that the child may achieve more than the mother herself. This is evident in the mother’s desire to give her child ‘all the things we never had’. The phrase suggests that the mother is conscious of the disappointments and limitations in her own life and wants to prevent her child from experiencing the same difficulties. She recognises the potential pitfalls of life and attempts to protect her child from them, shown through the image of walking ‘in front of them with warning flags’. The metaphor of ‘warning flags’ suggests that the mother wants to identify dangers before the child encounters them, demonstrating her protective nature.
Feaver also explores the mother’s regrets through the statement ‘we who have failed to be authors of our lives write theirs’. The metaphor of being ‘authors’ suggests that people should have control over the direction of their own lives. However, the mothers feel that they have ‘failed’ to achieve this, so they attempt to shape and influence their children’s lives instead. This reveals both the love and potential limitations of parental influence. In wanting ‘to make heroes of them’, mothers are not content simply to protect their children; they also want them to achieve greatness and fulfil the ambitions that they themselves may not have achieved. The final image of mothers who ‘wait and watch like gardeners for flowers’ presents motherhood as patient and nurturing. The metaphor of ‘gardeners’ suggests that mothers provide care and support while waiting for their children to develop and flourish. Like flowers, the children have the potential to grow into something beautiful and admired.
Overall, Feaver’s poem portrays many powerful ideas about a mother’s influence over her child. From the moment of birth, a mother’s love affects the way she views herself, her child and the future. The poem suggests that mothers influence their children in subtle but meaningful ways, wanting to protect them from their own mistakes while also encouraging them to achieve their ambitions. Ultimately, Feaver presents motherhood as a relationship characterised by unconditional love, protection, sacrifice and hope. The mother’s desire for her child to have the best possible life demonstrates the enduring love and affection that can exist between a mother and her child.
Calm Panic Campaign Promise By Alan Ginsberg
(596 words)
2022 is only days away, a time for celebration and cheer, though are we avoiding looking at the environmental damage caused by the progress we have made in such time? The need for more, the taking without giving back. Alan Ginsberg’s poem “Calm Panic Campaign Promise” is a few thoughts on the, sometimes, careless way problems are ignored.
Many of Ginsberg’s poems show his honest opinion on world issues and “Calm Panic Campaign Promise” is no exception. It is a poem designed to make everybody sit up and notice. The opening lines using, “end of millennium” and “earth decay” are major themes. It makes the reader realise that the millennium was a big turning point, a time to look back at what has been done. This leads directly onto earth’s ongoing decay emphasising that through all achievements the earth has been abused for it. I think these contrasting ideas can make the reader think of how people overspend and overuse during Christmas still ignoring their carbon footprint and another year to reach their own sustainability ambitions. With all the happiness of these festive celebrations, there is the global dilemma of earth’s decay. Could some of their actions be put to different causes?
Alan Ginsberg uses the line, “we’re the great beast” to reinforce the point that man’s behaviour has caused the earth’s decay. This is shown further in, “fire water air tainted” to which thoughts can be turned to such problems as car fumes and plastic use. These truths are of a list that could go on and on. The poem is only on the fourth line but is already very thought-provoking using this to show that everyone can be guilty of ignorance.
Instead of using facts to get his point across, Ginsberg uses the simile of the diseased body to put his points in a way to which every person can relate. This is shown in the line, “like watching gum disease and not brushing your teeth”. This is further shown in, “getting heart failure, no rest much stress”. This makes the reader think in general terms and the use of the words, “disease” and “stress” make them realise that to overcome those problems they have to put some effort in to stop it. If they do not, it could get worse. This is what it meant in, “poor circulation, smoke more”, emphasising the denial of many people.
Denial is used twice in the poem with the lines, “denial in Government” and “need President who’ll reverse the denial”. This brings to mind how even hierarchy is guilty of the decay if not more than the citizens of each country. The thought that their knowledge will help us, as Ginsberg puts it, to “restore nature’s balance”.
However, we need more to restore this balance. We need to “calm panic”. Ginsberg sees the panic at the conditions of the earth filling the “dark bed of thoughts of the people who feel unable to do anything to stop it”. While we panic, we are unable to consider how we might take action so we deny that there is a problem. Ginsberg seems to believe that a president could see the situation and lead action to remove this.
Like many of the people Ginsberg writes of, I might have dark night thoughts on rare occasions and recognise that progress has had huge environmental costs. However, while I would join into schemes designed to avoid environmental damage, I might sometimes forget or want to enjoy driving my car and spending money. Most of the time everyday living fills the thoughts.
“Calm Panic Campaign Promise” (from 1992, from Cosmopolitan Greetings)
End of Millennium
Earth’s decay –
Fire Air Water tainted
We’re the Great Beast –
Dark bed thoughts
Can’t do anything to stop it
Denial in Government, in Newspapers of Record –
Like watching gum disease and not brushing teeth
Getting heart failure, no rest much stress
Putting salt on your greasy pork
Putting sugar in coffee you’ve diabetic
Dysesthesia on foot soles
Poor circulation smoke more cigarettes
Kick your son under the table have another beer
Need President who’ll reverse the denial –
The Calm Panic Party
to restore nature’s balance
Shakespeare – Sonnet 29
(440 words)
In this piece, I will give a brief appreciation of one of Shakespeare’s sonnets, number 29. Here the sonnet encapsulates the mood of a depressive man trying to deal with his thoughts though it also indicates a mood change to love as a consolation.
The poem begins with a speaker who is lost in himself. He looks out to the world as if he is falling behind with his ambitions as a man. He has become very introverted while thinking that everyone has left him alone. The first line shows this with the “disgrace” he feels while using “men’s eyes” to show he thinks people are questioning him. As an ‘outcast’, the poem implies he is hopeless. The strength of the sonnet is shown by the first eight lines where the reader is drawn into this man’s despair. The use of the phrase “curse my fate” gives the reader a feeling of sorrow for this man who has lost faith in himself. There is a suggestion he has suffered from despair and anxiety.
Lines 9 to 12 lead the reader to the speaker’s mentality. Though the speaker almost considers himself to be despicable for being cast down as in “despising” of himself, he is looking at his point of view as if he is telling himself subconsciously to look at these negative words with a different perspective to open his considerations. This takes the reader away from the low feelings the speaker had. The speaker now thinks of the love of his life where he uses the word “haply”. This change of thought can be used as his way of bringing himself away from the despair he had for himself. The reader can feel the speaker’s mind start to turn. There is some comfort when he “think of thee”, the absent lover.
Moreover, the metaphor “(Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth)” rebounds against what the speaker has said. This is where Shakespeare’s sonnet shows great deliverance. From a desperate moment to the desire of his “sweet love” shows his mood swing. The final two lines which use the words “sweet love” and “such wealth” show the speaker’s change in feeling and his brighter outlook. There is a definite transformation in the speaker’s frame of mind.
This sonnet could appeal to most people as a universal declaration with this contrast of dark thoughts through to where Shakespeare calls attention to noble emotion encapsulated with his last words “change my state with kings” to drive the despondency away. The anonymous Renaissance London lover has addressed the person he loves. There is a power of true love.
Shakespeare’s sonnet 29
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
Comments on Little Black Boy by William Blake
Blake’s poem is dramatic, that is, in the voice of a speaker other than the poet himself. This poem of Blake’s uses the Little Black Boy to narrate the poem in first person. This projects the reader clearly inside the consciousness of the boy in the poem giving us the images from the defined observer. As a result, Blake stands outside innocence and experience in a distance position. The innocence is from ‘Songs of Innocence’, Blake’s first collection of poems, to which Blake’s subject matter shows the innocent, pastoral world of childhood. This was juxtaposed with experience, which was taken from ‘Songs of Experience’, his other collection, which shows the adult world of corruption and repression, therefore, showing the two contrary states of the human soul. The ‘songs of innocence’ dramatise the naive hopes and fears that inform the lives of children, namely the ‘Little Black Boy’ who tells this didactic story about himself in this poem.
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