Hope all is well!
Pair Work
Choose any TWO of the following poems and complete a comparative analysis:
Responses must be written in Paragraphs!
- Name of the Poem and Poet
- Themes
- The Situation in the Poem
- The Structure of the Poem
- Devices in the Poem
- The Images in the Poem
- ‘My Parents’ by Stephen Spender
- ‘The Woman Speaks to the Man who has Employed her Son’ by Lorna Goodison
- ‘Once Upon a Time’ by Gabriel Okara
- ‘A Stone’s Throw’ by Elma Mitchell
ReplyDeleteAshida Thomas and Reneé Roberts
Form: 4J and 4U
Stephen Spender and Lorna Goodison are poets with different writing styles. However, their poems ‘My Parents’ and ‘The Woman Speaks to the Man who Employed her Son’, respectively, share many similarities as well as differences.
In Spender’s poem, the author’s parents often kept him away from the lower class children who were considered to be rough. Although ‘The Woman Speaks to the Man who Employed her Son’ is written in the parent’s perspective, the poem shares the parents’ need to protect their child. It is seen that the mother loves her son but is worries about his well being when his employer becomes his “father figure” and gives him a gun. As a result both poems have multiple themes.
Goodison’s poem showcases themes of dreams, death, love and survival, all of which are felt by the mother. ‘My Parents’ strays away in similarities with themes of bullying and discrimination. Both poems, however, correspond in the them of childhood experiences and therefore may have similar literary devices.
Within the stanzas of both poems many literary devices are placed. ‘The Woman Speaks to the Man who Employed her Son’ is the longest poem out of the two with 48 lines within 6 stanzas (whereas ‘My Parents’ has only 12 lines with 3 stanzas) and therefore has more devices. These include similes, sarcasm, irony and biblical allusions whereas Stephen Spender only used similes and imagery.
Both poets equally created clear images for us to bring their poems to life. Lines such as “ Who threw words like stones and wore torn clothes” in the poem ‘My Parents’ shows that the children the author longed to be friends with were poor and of lower class than he was. Meanwhile, Lorna Goodison’s entire poem paints a picture of a heartbroken and fearful mother worrying about her strayed child.
Alliyah Noel 4N and Afiha George 4J
ReplyDeleteThe names of poems and poets that will be used are "My Parents" by Stephen Spender and "Once upon A time" by Gabriel Okara.Major themes in the poem "My parents" is parent love and the delay between social class.On the other hand childhood experience,hypocrisy and loss of innocence are the themes of "Once upon A Time".
The situation of the poem "My Parents" is that the childs parents hindered him from the aggressive children,worrying they will tease him.The poet confer a graphic picture of the street kids which explains the attitude of his parents.They are rough in their appearance and manners.Despite that the speaker is desirous of their freedom.Whereas the situation of the poem "Once upon A Time" is that the poet recalled how things used to be when he was young and decent like his son.
The poem "My Parents" is categorized in three short stanza,each with four lines whereas "Once upon A Time" is a free verse poem of forty-three lines parted in seven stanza
Literary devices for "My parent" is:
*Imagery
*Alliteration
*Hyperbole
*Simile
Literary devices in "Once upon A Time" is:
*Metaphor
*Simile
*Repetition
Imagery is used to make readers comprehend things implying their five senses. For instance, “Who threw words like stones and wore torn clothes”; “Their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms” and “Their thighs showed through rags they ran in the street" are from the poem "My Parents" in addition "they used to shake hands with their hearts" and "while their ice-block-cold eye search behind my shadow" are from "Once upon A Time".
Our childhood is one of the most important stages of one’s life and sometimes a bad childhood can lead to a broken person or a changed man. The poem My Parents by Stephen Spender centers around a parent who’s trying to prevent their child from a bad childhood of bulling and a certain social class, while on the other hand Once Upon A Time by Gabriel Okra takes the parents view of his childhood and his regret while trying to prevent his child from the same experience
ReplyDeleteThe themes in the poem once upon a time is childhood regret innocence and likewise the themes for my parents are childhood love bulling social classes
The situation in the poem once upon a time is a parent who was once innocent as a child and there was an equality and genuinely but now there is social classes and are superficial and only seek to gain from others and he regretfully has learned to be like then but wants to be as innocent as his son on the other hand my parents the persona is kept away from boys of a lower class by his parents but he ever so longs for a friend even though he gets rejected and bullied.
My parents is structured with stanzas. Therefore, this is a formal poem. Each stanza consists of four lines there is no regular end-rhyme per se in this poem, such as a strict ABAB rhyme scheme, or some such other end-rhyme scheme. However it employs an internal rhyme [within a line] on the other hand once upon a time is a first person free verse poem [irregular stanzas and lack of rhymes] and it seems unpoetic as it appears conversational and natural.
Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds in the same line such as the sound of /c/ in “And climbed cliffs and stripped by the country streams”.Imagery: Imagery is used to make readers perceive things involving their five senses. For example, “Who threw words like stones and wore torn clothes”; “Their jerking hands and their knees tight on my arms” and “Their thighs showed through rags they ran in the street.”The literary devices used throughout the poem are metaphors, similes and repetition. An example of a metaphor is found on stanza 1, 'laugh with their teeth, while their ice-block cold eyes search behind his shadow'.Imagery is a visually descriptive or figurative language, especially in a literary work.
Imagery in “My Parents”:The first line out of the 12 lines of the poem explains that Spender was kept away from children who were considered rough by none other than his parents. Spender uses imagery to describe these boys as ragged in appearance, with torn clothes and their skin being exposed through rags.
Imagery in “Once upon a time” In the poem the man (the father) addresses the son, telling him in a rather nostalgic manner, how things used to be. People were different back then, more genuine it seemed. So the persona (father) uses imagery like “ they used to laugh with their hearts and laugh with their eyes: but now they only laugh with their teeth, while their ice-block-cold eyes.” So it gives us a visual display of how their faces were when the people were laughing.
FRANCIS/SANYIAH,KAELENE
Machel Boldeau 4N
ReplyDeleteTHEMES-
The poems i'll be using are "My parents" by Stephen Spender and "Once upon a time" by Gabirel Okara.
The gap between social classes and parent’s love are the major themes of the poem "My Parents". Childhood experience,hypocrisy and loss of innocence are the themes of the poem "Once upon A Time".
THE SITUATION OF THE POEM-
The situation of "My Parents" is that the child was kept away from children who were considered rough by none other than his parents, and he feels like the word 'Kept' made him feel as if he was being forced to stay away from the boys. In "Once Upon A Time" The recalls his time and a young boy and how things were when he was younger and decent like his son.
THE STRUCTURE OF THE POEM-
"My Parents has three stanzas which are short and each has 4 lines, on the other hand "Once Upon A Time" is a free verse based poem with forty-three (43) lines in seven stanzas.
DEVICES IN THE POEM-
Literary devices in "My Parents" :
1) Alliteration
2) Imagery
3) Hyperbole
4) Simile
Literary devices in "Once Upon A Time":
1) Metaphore
2) Repetition
3) Simile
IMAGES IN THE POEM-
In "Once Upon A Time" the father speaks to the son about how things used to be, "People were different back then, more genuine it seemed" An example of imagery is the line "They used to laugh with their hearts and laugh with their eyes but now they only laugh with their teeth" portraits a scene which the readers can visualize the moment. On the other hand, in the poem "My Parents" the poet uses imagery to describe these boys as ragged in appearance, with torn clothes and their skin being exposed through rags. Gives us a visual display to how the boys were poor, or a lower class to the son.
Stephen Spender "My Parents" and Gabriel Okara "Once Upon A Time" was the two poems used, which included the themes in "freedom" and "childhood experiences". Difficulties were faced in both poems, in Stephens poem the poets parents kept him from children who were financially low, harsh and were bullies. On the other hand, in "Once Upon A Time", the poet look back at a time in the past when people were honest, sincere in their dealings with one another; thus, making him regret the behavior of the people now.in "My Parents" the poem is structured with stanzas, where each stanza consists of four lines whereas in "Once Upon A Time" each stanza is consisted of three lines
ReplyDeleteliterary devices in "My Parents" are:
*simile
*metaphor
*lack of rhyme
*enjambment
*imagery
literary devices In "Once Upon A Time" are:
*metaphor
*repetition
The poet uses imagery for us to paint a vivid picture in the poem for example "who threw words like stones and wore thorn clothes" in the poem "My Parents". whereas in the poem "Once Upon A Time" imagery was used where the poet spoke about "they used to laugh with their hearts but now they only laugh with their teeth's"
Sabrina Alexis
These two poems are poems of childhood experience, “My parent” by Stephen spender, was an English poet, novelist, and essayist who concentrated on the themes of social injustice, Stephen spender was born on February 28th,1909 and died July 16th, 1995, he was a very intelligent person, when he was young he attends to the university college school junior branch. My parent is a very famous poem and novelist, it was first published in the 19ths however,
ReplyDeletethe poem is all about childhood games or experience as I mentioned in the first line, bullying, and making friends and also illustrates the parent’s love, however, the poem is divided into three stanzas with no regular rhymes emphasizing the harsh treatment the poet endured during his childhood, on the other hand, the poem describes the poet relationship by two main groups such as the parent who kept him from the rough street children, and the street children he was ambivalent about being envious of them at the beginning of the poem, the Themes in this poem includes, social inequality meaning, the social class in which children grow up in has a direct impact in the way they are brought. Parental influence, the poet’s parents were protective of the poet as they felt that he would be mocked by others due to his disabilities. They had probably hoped that by protecting him from the harshness of the outside world, he could lead a normal life. Yet, the poet grew up in isolation from the rest of the children his age.in this poem there is simile “muscle like iron” imagery shows the rough children were. Give the idea on how different they were to the persona
Literary device in my parent
Imagery
Similes
Simili
Hyperbole
Once upon a time focus on fathers attitude to cultural change and time past in the poem, the father addresses the son in a wistful manner, how things use to be, because people was different back then, more genuine it seemed and that is what the speaker wants, to return in a restored world. The writer emphasizes two main themes of innocence and experience, and how over time, both of them have evolved into something other.once upon a time and my parent could fall under the same category because the speaker in once upon a time want to be like his son. The son does things with emotions and the father wants to forget his fake personality and re-learn and recreate his personality by following the values of the past. He asks his son to express true love and to have a real concern for others. On the other hand, “my parent my parent”, is where the child wish to be like the other children in the community but his parent won’t let him.But the two poems tells us how people are being hypocrite
Literary device in my parent
Metaphor
Imagery
Repetition
Brant Edgar
ReplyDelete