 Hello and welcome to our video summarising all you need to know about the conflict poems in the OCR anthology Towards a World Unknown. My name is Barbara and in this video I'll summarise each poem, beginning with some context about the poet before analysing each poem. Make sure you have your anthology handy and before you listen to each analysis read the poem first so that you can get a better grasp of its meaning. So let's get started. Now the conflict collection begins with a poison tree by William Blake. Now a little bit about the author himself. William Blake was born on the 28th November 1757. He was seen not only as an English poet but a visionary of his time. He was a painter, a printmaker, however art was what always attracted his poetry. He belonged to the era of the Romantic Age and a lot of his poems depict emotions and the consequences of these emotions. And although he wasn't really recognised or appreciated during his time, he became famous posthumously. Now this poem, a poison tree, has four different stanzas. It starts as a first person poem where the poet is expressing his anger and hatred towards his enemy. The poem then takes a turn and I is replaced with it, a pronoun to depict the feelings of the enemy but also to dehumanise the enemy. The poet has used a metaphorical style. For instance, Apple depicts his vengeance. Tree depicts his loss of patience underneath which he kills his enemy. Blake also uses end rhyme to really drive the message home. As in the first, second, third and fourth line of the poem's first stanza, you can see friend and end both at the end of the respective lines which rhyme, likewise foe and grow also rhymes. Now in the first stanza, the poet is not only expressing his anger towards his friend as well as the foe but he's also depicted the difference between the two different types of angers. He states that when you are angry with a friend, you convince your heart to forgive him. Even though you're hurt, you know what he did was an injustice to you, however you try to forget the past and end the feeling of vengeance in your heart. However, when you are angry with an enemy, it takes ages for you to calm your anger. Yet the anger and the feeling of vengeance don't diminish with time, in fact these feelings simply grow. In the second stanza, the poet is making a confession. It's he who's solely responsible for the hatred that's grown in his heart for his enemy. It's he who's increased the vengeance in his heart. He's nurtured the hatred with his fears, spending hours together crying for the ill that's been caused to him by his enemy. In the third stanza, the poet states that this is because of his dwelling in the same hatred that it's grown every day. It's like a plant. He birthed this apple, this acidic, horrible, vengeance filled apple, which has grown and the fruit signifies the evil that has taken birth in the heart of the poet. He states that he's now come to a point where he can't turn back and forget about his enemy until he does something to soothe his vengeance. Finally, the day comes when the poet's enemy has met the evil fruit of vengeance and he has grown with his fears, tears and sarcasm. The fruit has now turned into a weapon. When the enemy confronts this with anger, it's time for the weapon to serve the purpose that it was made for. And so in the fourth stanza, the poet states the very next morning the purpose is served and the poet wakes up and glimpses in the garden. He sees something that relaxes his mind and calms his vengeance forever. The darkness of the night acted like an invisible cloak for the poet. Now it's a beautiful morning. There he is, his enemy, dead under the tree of his hatred. He bit the poisoned apple of his vengeance and he was murdered. Now the next poem in this collection is Envy by Mary Lam. Now, Mary Lam was a poet scholar and she was born in 1764 and died in 1847. During her time, she tried her hand at a number of artistic pursuits and she was a writer, seamstress. However, she struggled with mental illness rather. Specifically, she was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and her mental illness was linked to the unfortunate death of her mother. This illness led to her living with her brother Charles, who became her writing partner and her life no doubt included sad moments and this melancholy to some extent is reflected in her writing. Now, by using different types of flowers in the poem Envy, this poem showcases a core belief that the existence of the title characteristic Envy is not only an unnecessary quality to possess, but it's actually nonsensical. This argument is presented in three stanzas each with an A, A, B, C, C rhyme scheme where a series of flowers and plants are referenced in comparison to the rose tree. According to Lam, a rose tree would have no reason to be jealous of the other noted flowers because it itself comes bearing its own beauty and potential. This idea in the third stanza is shifted to represent people who feel such jealousy towards one another. To Lam, the author, that jealousy has no rational place in one's mind because each person could have their own beauty and positive attributes that shine. Now in the first stanza of this poem, from the beginning, the poet takes a very specific approach by choosing to say this rose tree rather than a rose tree. That simple word choice connects the reader to one concrete idea as if the rose tree in question has been the centre of the discussion even before the stanza began. This tactic accomplishes two things. Firstly, the reader feels that the progress has already been made on the topic, giving a sensation that there's a ground already covered that supports these ideas being brought to the table. While nothing was actually stated before the stanza, this impression can create an established quality by acting as though the subject has previous support. The second thing that this tactic accomplishes is to root the reader in a state of exactness. Lam is not referring to just any rose tree, she's referring to this one. By giving the reader that specificity in detail, vagueness is immediately exchanged for certainness that will do Lam's argument a great favour as it continues since that certainness means she's sure of what she says. Beyond this word choice, the stanza brings a series of flowers into discussion to compare the rose tree to. But the interesting detail of this strategy is that no flower is referenced as a lacking or unnecessary option. The lily is fair, for instance, and the mignonnette is sweet. And this tactic highlights Lam's primary theme for this poem, that to her mind all people have their own beauty, so comparing each other is a fault. Possibly the most effective line for bringing this prospect to life under the metaphor of the plants is when the poem states, tree were discontent or wish to change its natural bent, that the prospect would be useless. This statement highlights what the rose tree could assume were its own flaws, but to the poet wanting to change even this flaws is the wrong mentality. As people can have a tendency to focus on their own shortcomings by comparing themselves to other people, Lam the poet insists that the rose tree shouldn't do this, and rather her opinion seems to be that all of the flowers listed have positives on which they can focus on individually. This concept is strengthened by the incorrect use of bent, where bent should grammatically be. The wording is a little bit off, however it unapologetically remains to solidify the poet's argument in a perfect rhyme. Now in the second stanza, this stanza strengthens the ending resolve of the first stanza by pushing things further than the aforementioned reference of faults. Whereas the first stanza only says what the rose tree should not focus on, this stanza mentions positive details, ones that the rose tree can look to in order to find reasons to have heightened self-esteem. The poet does this as in a way it makes these concepts sound like they're obvious to the point that no other thought process is sensible, stating that you would suppose these would be the factors worth consideration. Basically the word choice reads like she believes her given ideas and she's so sure about them that she's willing to include the reader, you in her reasoning. That reasoning is that a rose would only feel logical jealousy towards another flower if it had never seen its own red rose or smelt its own scent. There is too much good going for the red rose for it to compare itself to other plants. Now in the third stanza, the theme is wrapped up by turning the focus to people as a spoken simile. It states, all envious people are jealous like such a blind and senseless tree. All along as has already been inferred, the poet has been using these flowers as a method of commenting on human nature and their potential in her eyes. With that comparison expressly noted, the poet is free to turn the conversation directly to people in place of hiding behind the metaphor of the flower. But she still employs the use of this simile to address rather how she thinks people should live. Specifically, Lam uses the notion of care and culture like tending to a garden and a pretty flower to express talent that people have which adds to their worth. This specifically complements the earlier mentioned certainness referenced in the discussion of the first stanza. The main source and the main lesson of this poem is essentially how poisonous it is to compare ourselves to others rather than focusing on our own individual worth and our own individual value. The flowers are noted for their slight scent and that aspect could leave the reader feeling as though the only physical elements of appearance and presentation are what Lam is commenting on on the human condition. Since she labels the flower of humans as talent, it opens a door however to other qualities which a person could find pride in as well as confidence. This is not to say that physical attractiveness is not a place for pride and confidence in the poem. If Lam believed that, then the physical beauties of flowers would not have been mentioned in the comparisons. However, other topics can be included under the umbrella of things that are worthy of beauty and confidence within these flowers. From beginning to end, the poem discusses the futility of human jealousy by employing the varying beauty of flowers as a comparative tool. Now the next poem in this anthology is Boat Stealing by William Wordsworth. Now, Wordsworth was born on April 1770 at Cumbria and his father was a lawyer. However, both of his parents died before he was 15 and he and his four siblings were left under the care of different relatives. As a young man, Wordsworth developed a love of nature, a theme that's reflected in many of his poems. While studying at Cambridge University, Wordsworth spent a summer holiday on a walking tour in Switzerland and France and this led him to become an enthusiast for the ideals of the French Revolution. He began to write poetry while he was at school but none was published until 1793. Now when it comes to the poem itself, on a literal level, it seems to be simply about the theft of a boat by the young Wordsworth and the aftermath of which left him deeply troubled. The aftermath was essentially his encounter with the grim form of a huge mountain that seemed to pop up suddenly in his line of vision. The suddenness and the immenseness of the mountain left him flabbergasted and frightened. He felt as if the mountain was reprimanding him for stealing the boat by chasing after him but what scared the young poet was that most of the shapes were formed also in his sleep. They seemed to haunt him. However, metaphorically read, the mountain, that is the grim shape in the poem, can also be interpreted as the poet's conscience at having stolen the boat. The poet admits that stealing the boat was an act of troubled pleasure, which is an oxymoron. Deep down, he knew the impropriety of his act. It's only after he acknowledges the guilt that he sees the mountain looming up behind the craggy hill. If the poem is interpreted spiritually, then the encounter Wordsworth has with this image of the mountain can be seen in Wordsworth's encounter with his own self, his inner fears. As a young boy, Wordsworth was enamoured by nature. He thought he was familiar with all its temperaments. But on the evening of the boat-stealing incident, he saw a different side of his beloved nature. It led him to question nature itself as well as his own understanding of it. He found himself face-to-face with a new being that was almost human, however not human. Now, the next poem is The Destruction of Senator Cherub by Lord Byron. Now, Lord Byron was born in 1788 January, and he spent his early years in Aberdeen and was educated at Harris School and Cambridge University. He was seen as the ideal of the romantic poet, gaining notoriety for many of his scandalous affairs, as well as generally his scandalous private life, and he was described by one contemporary as mad, bad and dangerous to know. Now, the poet itself, The Destruction of Senator Cherub by Lord Byron, is a narrative poem that tells the story of how God destroys King Senator Cherub's Assyrian army as they attack the city of Jerusalem. This tale is found in the Old Testament in the Bible, and though it is an episode that is probably unfamiliar to quite a few people, it's essential within the biblical world. In the Bible, Senator Cherub attempted to besiege Jerusalem. When his soldiers came upon all the fenced sites of Judah, he took them, and so Hezekiah, the king of Judah, prayed to God and received the reply through the prophet Assyria that he would defend the city, save it for my own sake, and for my servant David's sake. In the night, an avenging angel visits Senator Cherub's camp and destroys his army, pushing Senator Cherub to return to Nineveh. It's worth pointing out that the siege of Jerusalem is historically known to have happened somewhere around 701 BC, though the result was that Jerusalem paid tribute to Senator Cherub and Hezekiah, which was thus allowed to remain as a vassal of the country. The poem takes its events chronologically. It starts with the Assyrians besieging Jerusalem, then moves on to an angel visiting the camp, quietly killing everything that it came into contact with, and here Byron does take his liberties pulling forth gratuitous and wordrous imagery of the siege and the murder of the Assyrian army. Now the first stanza of the poem, there is, despite the simplicity of it, a certain ferocity that is evoked in the phrase that Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold in the poem. This is certain to refer to Senator Cherub, and it works to evoke an image of this ferocity and his single-minded pursuit of Jerusalem, his grace and deadly power, and the image of the wolf on the fold serves to give the reader a half view into a different world, which is wild and dangerous and where the wolf is at the door almost constantly. Notice as well in this stanza the brightness of the colours that Byron used. At the time purple and gold were seen as a royal combination and so Byron almost is unabashed in his description of Senator Cherub in outfitting him as a modern king and how a modern king should be outfitted. The reference to the points of the spares in this first stanza as stars on the sea further emphasises Senator Cherub's power. He's so unwittingly strong that he seems to encompass the universe and his soldiers look like nothing more than marauding stars, gleaming larger than life in the darkness. They are constant as we can see in the next line when it states, when the blue wave rolls nightly on the deep Galilee. The Assyrian soldiers have therefore been waiting for quite some time outside the city of Jerusalem and one can assume that it is quite late into the siege. In the second stanza Byron evokes the core tenets of romanticism by comparing the invading Assyrian army to leaves in the summer, the vibrant, plentiful, very much aware of the presence in the world. Then in the next stanza he carries on this imagery and refers to them as leaves in the forest when autumn hath blown. It's amazing how much this simple turn of phrase creates an image in which in the mind of the reader. From there he writes, the host of the morrow lay withered and strewn, and this brings up such a mental picture of the broken in bodies of the soldiers lying scattered all along the ground, smote where they stood by God's avenging angel. In the third stanza the angel of death makes his appearance and one can see how Byron took the imagery to his own liberties and there is something particularly beautiful about how he describes the angel of death. He isn't violent or angry, he appears and moves slowly through the soldiers, breathing in their faces and that's all he needs to do to take their lives. It helps the reader to understand just how strong the world of God is and just how terrifying an alien and deadly God's angels are. It's worth noting that in the Bible, especially the Old Testament, angels were actually considered to be terrifying. They were considered otherworldly, beings that looked utterly inhuman and horrifying to the masses and thus it isn't surprising that the first word that spoke to the people in several instances tended to be not to be afraid or a variation of this in the Bible. Death is a gradual process, the poem says, and the eyes of the sleeper waxed deadly in chill, showing the life being taken out of them. It's not terribly long but it does not hurt this death. One minute they're alive, they breathe, they exist and the next they're dead. Now in the fourth stanza Byron goes further into the explanation of the dead soldiers. He states, in there lay the steed with his nostril all wild, wide, and somehow this image of the horse brought low is far more animated than the death of the soldiers. As Byron describes it, there's an element of fighting to the way the horse dies. Note the words, the foam of his gasping, something that occurs when a horse is particularly scared or worried. Also note the reference of the rock-beating surf, an expression which calls back the wildness of the waves forever stilled now in terms of the horse. It's almost as though the horse has understood something far more than the soldiers did and knew that it was dying in the way that the soldiers did not. Compared to it in the fifth stanza, the peacefulness of the death of the rider all we're given is the view of how he lay distorted and pale and there was dew on his brow and the rust on his mill and how the tents were all silent to the banners alone. In this stanza there's such stillness as compared to the wild death of the horse, there's such silence in comparison to the horse's death and none of the soldiers fought back. None of the soldiers knew what had happened to them and death was just a sudden driving process that happened to them. However in the sixth and final stanza that activity returns but not from the dead army of Sennacherib but from others, the wives and mothers, their family, the widows of a shore, are loud and their well writes Byron, the idols are broke in the temple of Baal. This shows that whatever happened to the army of Sennacherib is almost a perversity. Now the next poem is There's a Certain Slant of Light by Emily Dickinson. Now, Emily Dickinson was born in 1830 and died in 1886. She's one of the most recognized American poets of all time. Throughout her life, Dickinson rarely left her house and her visits were few as she lived in almost total isolation. Nevertheless, she kept in contact with a small number of people and they had a great impact on her works in poetry. Moreover, Dickinson was greatly influenced by metaphysical poets such as John Keeds and Robert Browning. Now in the poem, There's a Certain Slant of Light, it was published in 1890. However, it was later altered and published in 1955. And Dickinson is known in this poem especially for her unusual use of punctuation. For example, notice the dashes and the commas in the middle of the lines in this poem and they're used by Dickinson in order to slow down the pace of the poem and control the rhythm and musicality of the stanzas. This poem has several main themes. They include nature, the importance of meaning, God and religion, alienation and loneliness, as well as death. And the poem depicts how a certain slant of light oppresses the lyrical voice. This light will be impossible to describe, but as the stanzas go by, the lyrical voice puts into words how this light affects them. Now in the first stanza of this poem, it begins by setting the scene. The first lines depict a particular time of year, winter afternoons, with a certain feel, a certain slant of light. Notice the capital letters in the first few lines, so slant, winter, afternoons, heft and cathedral tunes are all capitalised. These emphasise, however, the significance. The lyrical voice furthers on this slant of light and characterises it rather as oppressive. There's a simile between heft and cathedral tunes and these describe how the lyrical voice feels about this certain slant of light. The rhyme scheme of this stanza is A, B, C, B and it has an alternation between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter. Moreover, notice the syntax in these first lines and how the commas and dashes divide and accentuate information while establishing a particular rhythm. The second stanza of this poem describes internal and religious thoughts that the lyrical voices possesses. The first line of this stanza starts with an oxymoron, heavenly hurt, which furthers on the idea given in the previous stanza. The suffering that the lyrical voice depicts is internal. We can find no scar but internal difference. The lyrical voice uses natural imagery like the winter setting or the light to express certain internal struggles. The conflict of the lyrical voice appears to be in the internal difference where the meanings are. The dashes have a crucial role in this stanza as it separates certain ideas, making them independent from the rest, but at the same time, they act as a connection between these ideas, building a deeper and bigger meaning. The third stanza continues on with the issues of the previous line. The opening of this stanza starts with heavenly hurt and it also refers to internal difference that are mentioned in the second stanza. The lyrical voice states that no one can teach you about these subjects because they are impossible to define. The word any refers to the subjectivity of the internal difference and notice how this word is written between dashes to emphasise its meaning. Hence, these subjects turn to the seal despair due to the fact that they can't be clearly explained. Notice also how the conflict within the lyrical voice has evolved from a certain slant of light to the seal despair. However, the metaphor imperial affliction centres to the air, returns to the idea of the beginning of the certain slant of light. This metaphor sums up all of the lyrical voices' despair and suffering. The fourth stanza, which is the final stanza, uses strong natural imagery. The lyrical voice describes how nature listens to everything and everyone. The scene appears to be similar to that in the first stanza, as nature appears to be still and mysterious. Also, notice the personification of nature and how it meditates the lyrical voices' internal struggles with the external world. Moreover, the capitalisations emphasise the personification and the meaning these words have for the lyrical voice. All the lines in the poem build up to this moment, where the lyrical voice compares the slant, certain slant of light to death, using a very macabre imagery that relates to the mystery of the slant of light. The dashes are crucial in this last stanza as they provide a different pace to the poem, accentuating the difference in tone of these last lines. Furthermore, the poem ends with the dash rather than a full stop. This is to emphasise the idea of uncertainty and the internal conflicts of the poem presents. Rather than obtaining a certain answer, the reader is given further questions with this last dash. Now, the next poem in this collection is The Man He Killed by Thomas Hardy. Now, the time period in which Hardy lived was such that he experienced war first hand. He was also keenly interested in history and he studied many of the wars that happened before his time. This knowledge of the effects of war really colour this particular poem and make it very personal, making the reader think about war in terms of one man killing another, even though neither man hated each other. The experiences that Hardy had throughout his life did not give him an optimistic view of mankind, hence this is also reflected in this poem and there's a strong, dark, cynical feel to this poem. However, the rhyme and rhythm that he uses within this poem are light and musical, giving the poem a feeling of irony that makes the dark images all the more powerful. Now, Hardy wrote poems such as The Man He Killed as a way to express his feelings about the war wars that were happening at the time in South Africa. Most of Great Britain supported this war, so his words about it mark him as one of the... as one who was willing to go against the tide, think through what is happening and form his own opinions about this war. For this poem, Hardy makes war very personal and this is what allows readers to relate to it. He helps readers identify with his feelings by bringing the war down to a personal one-to-one level between two individual soldiers. The way in which he does this helps a reader understand the realities of war. The poem follows a very simple rhyme scheme. It has an A-B-A-B rhyme scheme, the result of which creates a lulling, nursery rhyme kind of feeling which is actually very ironic considering the subject of the poem. Now, the first stanza begins with the hypothetical idea that the speaker and a man meet up in some old ancient inn. Because the title is The Man He Killed, the readers can assume that the speaker is referring to the man or another soldier that he killed. He's giving a hypothetical situation to help readers understand the humanity of both men. Immediately, the readers can picture two men meeting up just by chance and sitting down for a drink together and Nippekin refers to a type of container that held a certain amount of liquid. This stanza makes it clear that the speaker wishes that he had met this man under different circumstances. The reader doesn't yet know what the circumstances were that led to the speaker shooting the man. However, it doesn't sound like the speaker had any hateful feelings towards him so we can presume that this is a killing that was sponsored in a war. The word but in the second stanza jolts the reader out of this hypothetical situation and back into reality. In real life as part of an infantry, the speaker stared a man in the face and then shocked him. The man also shot at the speaker. Both of them are anonymous. However, the speaker killed him in his place. This stanza reveals to the reader that the speaker had a near-death experience. He was being so focused on the man he shot he doesn't have any insight into what he felt having been the man to walk away. The fact that the two men were face-to-face shows that either of them could have died. It's all a case of luck. Perhaps this near-death experience was what caused the speaker to reflect about the other man rather than look inwardly at himself. The first two lines of the third stanza reveal that the speaker does not really know why he shot the man. He says, I shot him dead because, and then he poses in this poem. The reader can imagine that what he's thinking, for he does not know why he killed him. Then he finally gives a reason. He says he killed him because he was a foe. Then he asserts, my foe, of course, he was. That's clear enough. As if to try to justify what he did when he shot the man. And it's clear that the speaker is quite uncomfortable about what he's done and is trying to reason with himself and convince himself that he's done the right thing by shooting this man. The fact that he was at war, however, is not reason enough for the speaker. At first in the fourth stanza, the speaker tries to justify shooting the man. Then he begins to think about the man's life. He supposes that the man was also enlisted in the military, offhand, because perhaps he was out of work. The speaker thinks about the man as being somewhat like him. He himself enlisted because he knew not what else to do. He didn't go to war with a desire to kill man. And now he's killed somebody and he can't explain to himself why he's done it. In the fifth stanza, the speaker, after trying at first to justify the shooting of the man, then thinks about the man's life. The poem ends by concluding that war is very strange. He calls it quaint and curious because in war, you might shoot the very same man with whom you would treat to a pint of liquor or alcohol had you met him in a bar rather than on a battlefield. Now the next poem is anthem for doomed youth by Wilfred Owen. So Wilfred Owen was born in 18 March 1893 and he remains one of the leading voices and poets of the First World War. He was a second lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment. The shortly after he fell into a shell hole and has blown sky high by trench mortar, spendering several days of the next room to the remains of a fellow officer. Soon afterwards, he was diagnosed as suffering from neuroanesthesia and went back home and then he began to work on his poetry. Ultimately, Owen did die in conflict in the First World War. Now the poem itself refers to the First World War and as it raged on, Wilfred Owen spent a lot of his days when he was in recovery writing it. And so the poem anthem for doomed youth is written in sonnet form. However, it serves as a dual rejection. It rejects the brutality of war but also it rejects religion seemingly. The first part of the poem takes place during a pitched battle whereas the second part of the poem is far more abstract and happens outside of the war calling back the idea of the people waiting at home to hear about the loved ones. The first stanza of this poem begins as do many of Owen's poems with a note of righteous anger. It states, what passing bells for those who dies cattle and the use of the word cattle in the opening line sets the tone and mood for the rest of it. It dehumanizes the soldiers much in the same way that Owen sees the war as dehumanizing people and bringing up imagery of violent and unnecessary slaughter. Owen made no secret of the fact that he was a great critic of the war. His criticism of pro-war poets has been immortalized in poems such as Dulce de Corum est as well as letters that he wrote to him. However, in this poem anthem, Owen also shows that he thought the war was a horrific waste of human life. The first stanza continues in the pattern of a pitched battle as though it was being ristened during the push over the trenches. Owen notes the monstrous anger of the guns and the stuttering rifles and he writes about the shrill demented choir of wailing shells. It's a horrible world that Owen creates in those few lines bringing forward the idea of complete chaos and madness of an almost animalistic loss of control. He also points out the near reluctance of the soldiers who are in war. At this point, a great deal of the British army had lost faith in the war as a noble cause and was only fighting out of a fear of court martial, therefore the rifles stutter with hasty horizons. Horizons are a type of prayer which further points out Owen's lack of faith. He belies that war has overshadowed faith and it's taking the place of belief. Ironically also, the use of animatopia for the guns and shell humanizes war far more than its counterparts. War seems to be a living human being when reading this poem, much more so than soldiers. It takes precedence over these soldiers. The mourners in the second stanza also refer to monstrous anger, stuttering and shrill demented choirs. All of these terms bring forward the image of war as not only human, but alive and it's a great monster chewing up everything in its path, including soldiers. In contrast also, the quiet of the second stanza and the use of softened imagery brings into sharp relief the difference between war and normal life which has ceased to be normal at all. In the second stanza, Owen moves away from the war to speak about the people who've been affected by it, the civilians who mourn the lost brothers, fathers, grandfathers and uncles, the ones who wait for them to come home and wind up disappointed and miserable when they don't. The acute of loss of life that Owen witnessed in war is made all the more poignant and heartbreaking in this second stanza which, compared to the first, seems almost unnaturally still. He speaks about the futility of mourning the dead who have been lost so carelessly and by making the mourners youthful, he draws further attention to the youthfulness of the soldiers who fought themselves and who also died too early. Owen also frames the second stanza in the dusk. This is to signify the end which of course for many soldiers, it was their end. The second stanza is also considerably shorter than the first. It contains only six lines compared to the first which contains nine. The meter is far more even in the second stanza as well. This only subtly different but net effect is that while the first stanza creates a frenetic, disjointed feel, the second is more reflective of a solemnity. The final nine as each slow dusk, a drawing down of blinds highlights the inevitability and the quiet of the second stanza, the almost pattern-like manner of mourning that's now become a way of life. It normalizes the funeral and hints at the idea that this was not the first second nor was it the last time that such mourning would be carried out. So the next poem in this collection is Virgis Mainiert by Keith Douglas. Now, Keith Douglas born in 1920 to 1944 was a young poet who was tragically killed in the invasion of Normandy in 1944 during the Second World War. In his poetry, we can see how he was inspired by the First World War poets, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon in his direct use of language and unsentimental portrayal of the battlefields. Now, when it comes to the poem itself, Virgis Mainiert, which means, forget me not, the poem is set out in six stanzas of four lines each, in other words, quatrains, and the rhyme scheme is irregular with full rhyme in some places and half rhyme in others. This was a technique used by Wilfred Owen and it's known as Pararime. The rhythm varies too with seven, eight or nine beats per line and it's mostly iambic. We can assume that the poet has deliberately avoided traditional rhythm and rhyme schemes to illustrate the upset and reversal of norms caused by war. Although the tone is somber, it's also matter of fact about the soldier's death and almost avoid of pity with the exception of stanza five in reference to his girlfriends and how this sight would make her weep. A sense of world weariness prevails. This is just another casualty of war and at least he belonged to the enemy's side. The language employed is simple and unsentimental but this in no way detracts from the message of the poem that war is bloody and brutal. Now in stanza one, the poet sets a scene. There are a group of soldiers who revisit the place of battle and found a soldier lying sprawling in the sun. This long, sibilant description suggests a person in deep repose savoring the sun's rays and relaxing. But we know this can't be the case since this was a scene of a vicious battle, a nightmare of ground from which the competence had fled. The use of internal rhyme and repetition of the words gone and found create a really heavy effect as though a bell is tolling to signify mourners. The fact that the words gone and sun in the poem don't completely rhyme gives a verse an uneven feel. This is done deliberately to show the sense of confusion caused by warfare. The natural human reaction upon finding a body would be one of shock and grief but overexposure to brutality has rendered these men quite indifferent to this. The first two lines of the second stanza are confusing as we struggle to picture how the gun is overshadowing. The poet uses personification in the frown and barrel of his gun. We question whether this is done to suggest that the gun has failed to protect him and is thus frowning. There's further reference to this in stanza 4. Next, the diction almost moves to the register of direct speeches though the speaker in the poem is relating to his comrades what happened on the day of battle, telling it in monosyllabic language. The tone is interesting as we wonder if the speaker is trying to take credit for having killed his enemy soldier as the first line of the stanza 4 suggests which says we see him almost content or we wonder if he's trying to justify why he had to kill this soldier. In the third stanza again the direct speech carries on as though the speaker is leading us the readers by the hand as well as his comrades and he wants to show us his handiwork. The full stop after the word look is deliberately jarring and we stop to observe the scene. The line gun pits spoil sounds almost clinical. The men now see the man for who he was not just a random fighter on the posing side but a man with a private life and a sweet heart who loved him. However the tone is still quite dispassionate at least it is acknowledged that the picture has been dishonoured lying beside or on the dead man presumably sullied by flies and his remains. Once more the absurdity and horror of war is shown in contrast to real life and her perfect writing in copy book gothic script. The fourth stanza is a really hard hitting verse as it reflects on the attitude of the onlookers as they're taking the scene before them without any sadness or remorse. It's a dog yet dog world that's being conveyed the sense prevails that it's them or our situation and in losing this battle this person is now abased as though he should feel ashamed for having succumbed to death and this notion is magnified by his munitions. They remain as the poem says hard and good when he's decayed the consonants of the CK sound in mocked and the hard D sounds in hard and good together are harsh and clipped suggesting that he deserved his fate. Conversely we could think of the contrast between hard metal and soft flesh and the repercussions when they meet. In the fifth stanza the true horror of the scene is made explicit the poet employs vivid imagery to show the extent of the soldier's injuries. There is hard hitting graphic language that's used and it makes us visualize the flies as they swarm around his face the delicate skin around the eyes dried so it resembles paper and finally the description of the burst stomach like a cave. The simile effectively shows how the shell of gunfire has hollowed out his stomach and he had no chance of survival. In the concluding sixth stanza we feel some appreciation that the corpse which lies here abandoned to the elements was a person who meant something to others. It's impossible to differentiate between the soldier and the lover for they're one and the same. The repetition of the statement one body and one heart is moving and we feel that this is perhaps coming home to the soldier's hair. The enemy hair is seen as death which is personified as having singled him. This could be interpreted as this killer shrugging off responsibility the idea that war is war and death which takes life when it chooses. However there's a sense of pity expressed here for the girl since in losing her lover she too has been done and we're all hurt. Now the next poem is What Were They Like? by Denise Levertov. So Denise Levertov is well recognized in her ability to combine her own experience with historical facts in her writing and through her poetic skills she's able to build up a new and poetic vision. Also the virtue of her poetry is that readers are able to familiarize themselves with the poet's experience and obtain a different level of understanding. Now in the poem What Were They Like? it's about the artifacts of war and what happens when one culture conflicts with another. The poem specifically protests the damage done by the American military to people of Vietnam during the war between two nations in the 1960s and 70s. This poem has a really unique structure it's split into two verses and the reasons for structuring the poem like this are given when she says that did the people of Vietnam use lanterns of stone? Did they hold ceremonies? To revere the opening of buds or were they inclined to quiet laughter? In the poem Levertov employs the public event of the Vietnam War as a canvas on which she sketches the lyrical, strong and sometimes sarcastic image created by thought provoking in juxtapositions for readers who question the morality of this war. Now this poem enters or opens rather with a series of questions about the past. The questions appear to suggest an ancient religious civilization grounded in old skills and appreciation of nature. The questions continue like a catechism and answers seem to be required. The material seems almost primitive and traditional. The poet says had they an epic and the poet seems to be referring to the ancient mythical civilization most probably Greeks to great epics Odyssey and Iliad. This very first part of the poem is replete with sarcastic questions and is an attack on those who don't understand the value of the lives of human beings. Through the questions the poet wants the reader to think about and then look for these answers. Through words like electricity and stones the poet wants to tell people of Vietnam and how the people Vietnam passed a very simple and ordinary life but due to the attack of the American army the country was separated from other advanced nations such as the UK and America. Here in this stanza the poet also plays a sympathy card on behalf of the Vietnamese and we as readers are saddened by highlighting the simplicity of the Vietnamese lifestyle in contrast to the invasion of the American army. The imagery of lanterns of stone makes the poet combine two incompatible things. The combination of words provokes the reader's minds and we think of a diverse number of associations when we read this. In the second stanza the speaker who's a questioner asks questions or rather in the first stanza the speaker who's a questioner has asked some questions. However in the second stanza there's someone who gives answers to the questions of the first speaker. As we go through these verses it becomes clear that the first speaker is a man and the second might know what has happened. The very first word in the second stanza is sir and it's used in a sarcastic way. This catechism provides numbered answers which relates to the questions in the poem. Moreover beginning with sir may also hint at the person answering the question is being respectful. It's just like a soldier answering a commander but it might be feigned and false respect. The poet tells that all those gleeful joyful nature loving people are now dead. The light has turned to stone which may mean that the speaker has given answers in the first verse of the first stanza. When he asks if the people of vietnam use lanterns of stone. He tells though before the war that they used to be happier and now there's no one left to answer almost as almost all of them are turned to stone. In the third stanza asking to the answering the questions of the speaker the responded in the third stanza of the poem says that there was a time when the peaceful clouds used to reflect their paddy fields and the water buffalo used to step along the terraces. The speaker gives the longest answer of this question by describing what and how the culture of the vietnamese people was before the war. The speaker says that the east live a very simple life and they were stable and calm. Their paddy fields were waterlogged they remained rich with the growth of rice however the war has now destroyed everything and there's only screams all around. The bombs have totally smashed the mirrors and when the bombs are falling they didn't have time even to sing and when all they could do was just scream and run to save their lives. It was reported that their singing resembled the flight of moths and moonlight. This line in the third stanza is powerful as it creates a picture of people who had a gentle lifestyle however their lifestyle has been horrified and destroyed as a result of the legacy of war. Now the legacies of these people are now dead and gone with them and the last sentence of the poem shifts to the present tense it's a simple statement but it contributes to the power of the point. Many people in Vietnam are dead and the culture has been destroyed as a result of the Vietnam War. There's a strong image that suggests the beauty and delicateness of the Vietnamese and the sound of their singing. If briefly said the final stanza gives an additional edge of recollected beauty in the image of the flight of moths. This poem is more about suffering and anguish and anger. Now the poem Lament by Jillian Clark a little bit about the author herself. She was born in Cardiff and she has written in addition to writing poetry she's written radio and theatre drama and translated a lot of her poetry and prose from Welsh. Now the poems itself Lament the idea of it is an elegy or an expression of grief. It can be sad and military tunes are played on a bugle and the poem uses the title as a start of a list of lamented people events and creatures and other things that have been hurt in war. So after the word lament every verse and 11 lines begin with 4. The poem really is about the Gulf War which happened in 1991 when Iraq invaded Q8 and the US with Britain's help bombed Iraq and this war has really technically never stopped. Now one of the elements of this poem is the idea of the nature and the natural world. So the natural world plays a really significant role and in the first two verses Clark describes a turtle and a cormorant which is a diving bird with a famous appetite both searching for the naturally fulfilling habitats. For the turtle it's searching for a place to lay her eggs and for the bird it's the sea where food can be easily found. However in both cases these areas are totally corrupted and these passages are marked with darkly connotative terms such as the words bird and sickness funeral and shadow all which feature in the poem. In these words the natural world seems distorted and ruined. Natural imagery is also prominent in the fifth, sixth and seventh verses of the piece surrounded in a similar darkness to the opening two. In particular the final two verses describe a natural imbalance of catastrophic proportions. Clark describes a sun as being velled and then extinguished all together an apocalyptic disaster has occurred. Despite this it's framed from the perspective of the animals particularly birds who migrate long and slowly and are slowly dying. In these ways the poem is somewhat of an eulogy to the natural planet and the grim look at its darkest moments. Mankind is also included in this poem so juxtaposed against the natural imagery. The involvement of people and their struggles is portrayed and interestingly there are far fewer man-made images throughout the poem than natural images so the ones that do appear make it clear that human walls are the cause of natural world's devastation. By choosing to focus on lives that are innocent and ones that do not comprehend the cause or nature of their own destruction Clark really elicits a measure of sympathy for her audience. The third and fourth verses focus on a number of thematically related images. First Ahmed who stands at a closed border suggesting he's trying to enter a country and is being denied access. Secondly there's the image of the soldier who's been burned alive and these two images are a clear indicator of war, strife or a similar struggle that sees people as enemies of each other. In the following verse Clark expresses sympathy for gunsmiths and amorous the people who create devices and tools used for destructive purposes only and then for the people who must use these devices. In particular she describes these people as boys and sons suggesting that they are really in over their heads in a conflict that doesn't really involve them. In the fifth verse the natural world and that world of humans collide when a well is rendered speechless in fear as a response to the sound of a missile detonating nearby. Similarly the seventh verse concludes the poem with a haunting phrase for vengeance in the ashes of language. This is perhaps the most complex idea of the poem which has just metaphorically that language has been destroyed and vengeance is a concept that has replaced it in human society. The ashes of language is a striking image one that essentially describes the absolute destruction of human society. We question whether any culture can exist within language without language rather. In the midst of the natural world being destroyed by warfare the world of humans, culture and language and countless unique societies has also been lost. Now the next poem is punishment by Seamus Haney. Now Haney was born in 1939 and died in 2013. He was an Irish poet, playwright, lecturer and translator and he's indicated that this poem in particular was based on personal experience. In an interview with the Paris Review he said that punishment is really a poem about standing by the IRA and tar and feather these young women in Ulster. It's about standing by as the British torture people and barracks and interrogation centres in Belfast and it's about standing between these two forms as an affront. Now punishment which is featured in North which is a poetry collection in 1975 uses images and symbols of the past to convey the violence of political conflicts at the end of the 20th century. In the first stanza of this poem the lyrical voice imagines a girl. Throughout the poem this person will depict the stages leading to the execution of this young girl accused of adultery. The lyrical voice creates a vivid image as he or she senses how this girl is brought to her death. The poem says I can feel the tug of the hoarder at the name. Notice the emphasis on senses and how the lyrical voice feels to the girl and the wind on her naked front. The lyrical voice thus appears to be watching the girl from the outside as she's taken to the execution side. The second quatrain continues to describe the girl and the lyrical voice mentions in her naked torso and how she walks towards the execution side. The girl is described as weak and fragile as she stands in the wind and trembles. In the third stanza this quatrain furthers this description as the girl leads towards her death. The stanza begins as the first one does emphasising the lyrical voice of the girl in this situation. It states I can see her drowned. However the lyrical voice pictures the girl dying depicting this by illustrating her body in a very realistic way. The word bog is highly symbolic and the images that follow explain how she was drowned to death by the weighing stone and the floating rods and bows keeping her in place. There are a great number of vowel sounds in this stanza which create a certain musicality that goes along with the images created. The fourth quatrain in the fourth stanza continues with the scene of the girl's death. The lyrical voice explains her punishments and the consequences of it. As in the previous stanza the lyrical voice creates powerful images to illustrate the young girl's terrible destiny in a very graphic and authentic way. The description of the girl as barked sapling emphasises her youth and how she'll dug up oak bone and brain furkin function and they function as compressed similarities which further the description of the girl's body. In the fifth stanza this quatrain focuses on how the girl's body is almost like a prisoner's. The lyrical voice focuses on the detail of her body. Her head was shaved like a stubble of black corn as a punishment for adultery and she was blindfolded and has a ring around her neck as all prisoners do. However her noose ring could also mean the entrapment of married life which the girl was condemned to. In the sixth stanza this quatrain expands on the symbolism of the ring or the noose. The lyrical voice suggests that the ring is an element that stores death and the memories of love. This is a complex and intense message which is emphasised by the last two lines. Then the lyrical voice addresses the subject of adultery directly by calling the girl little adulteress, accentuating her youth and her fragility. Moreover the punishment is also mentioned directly from the previous stanza there's a sort of link between the quatrains as one continues the message of the one before. This helps to provide a sort of unity in the poem and also accentuate every quatrain as an evocative portrait that provides a bigger scene. Notice also how the image is depicted become more graphic and more dramatic with the stanzas in order to increase the dramatic tension of the text. The seventh quatrain talks about a past state of the young girl. The lyrical voice remembers that she was beautiful before with the flats in head undernourished and her tar black face. This these images contrast with those depicted before as the girl although in a past state is mentioned as beautiful. The last line of the stanza is crucial because the tone of the poem shifts and the lyrical voice feels a sort of pity towards the girl. In the eighth stanza this quatrain shifts the lyrical voices position. Throughout the stanzas the lyrical voices describes the girl from a distant point but in this particular quatrain this speaker relates the sentimentality to the girl. It says I almost love you. The lyrical voice also mentions that the speaker is an artful voyeur a role which implies that he saw her death and did nothing to stop it. The tone in this stanza is far more intense as the lyrical voice puts themselves and their feelings in the stanza. The ninth stanza continues the description of the girl's body. This quatrain has a lyrical voice that goes back to depicting the remains of the young girl's body. The girl appears to be completely exposed and there's little dignity in her death. Furthermore the lyrical voice portrays the girls remains in a really powerful and descriptive way. The tenth quatrain or the tenth stanza shifts back to the lyrical voices position. This stanza is a critical part of the poem as the lyrical voice admits to their feelings of guilt. It says I have stood dumb. The lyrical voice feels guilty because they didn't do anything and they watched the girl being punished and killed. The young girl's helplessness and her death can be related to because of the strong historical background of the poem and that of Irish women in modern society. The eleventh stanza which is the final quatrain continues with the message of the previous one. The tone of this poem shifts and becomes a sort of confession. The lyrical voice refers to the barbarities of the modern world. It states civilized outrage and how to reverse them stating tribal intimate revenge. Thus the poem finishes with a dramatic message. The poem is deeply related to historical events that happened in Ireland during the 20th century and here Haney records his own reactions and announces that particular time. Now the poem Flag by John Agard. So Agard himself is a playwright poet and a short story writer and he was born on 21st June 1949 in British Guyana now known as Guyana and he migrated to England and he now lives in the southeast of England. Now for the poem itself for Agard the national flag is an especially vague symbol given his background and his status as a migrant. This poem is an indication of the great many differences and the great many different ways that people can view the same national symbol. Most people are fairly familiar with their own national flag for some it's an indication of pride others a sign of home and others still a nostalgic memory. For others the flag of a foreign country might represent whatever they think they consider that country or rather what image they have of that country. Now in the poem Flag in the first stanza the description states a piece of cloth that brings a nation to its knees. This can be interpreted in two main ways on the one hand it describes a nation as kneeling for the national flag and it's not a realistic image. While most prefer to hold their hands over their heart the symbolic meaning of each gesture is similar. On the other hand in the case of a conquest the waving of the victor's flag can be seen as bringing the rivals to their knees and yet the primary focus of the verse is the wording it's just a piece of cloth and yet it has this immense power. The second stanza essentially examines the flag as something that brings courage and it can be interpreted in two ways. For those who fight battles for their home country in any capacity the sight of the national flag reminds them of what they battle for and it brings courage to their mindset. However there's also the idea that those who fight against a particular country might be emboldened by the reminder of what they're seeking to overcome. While these situations are specific to war they can be adapted to any number of situations and show the unusual effect caused by a piece of cloth that brings courage without actually doing anything other than as the verse points out and furling from a poll. The third stanza closely follows the second daring the coward to relent is a similar thing to say to making men brave. It says that who those who might normally be fearful of an action relent the cowardice when faced with the flag that they fight for in whatever capacity. To see the flag rising over a tent further suggests a battle of some kind in which cowardice is seen as a dangerous issue to be dealt with. Unlike the previous verses the fourth stanza does not suggest a quality that is furthered or strengthened by the presence of the flag but rather it reminds the reader that the flag will exist even after they've died. In the idea of warfare this is the same as suggesting that the cause being fought for is worth dying for because it will continue to live on after the death of its soldiers. The flag and everything it stands for is a home an ideology a way of life it can be anything that will outlive the people who give their lives for it. The fifth and final stanza essentially takes a less and subtle cynicism of the earlier verses and it brings it out into the open. The response to the question of how the speaker can possess such a cloth that makes cowards brave and brings nations to their knees is to take a piece of colored cloth but that it's not just about this cloth it's about blinding your conscience so that the cloth and what it represents to you is more important than anything else in the world and it stands at the forefront of your conscious mind. It seems that the narrator is saying that the flag is only as important as it's made out to be in the conscious mind and so for it to have any power it must be consciously made to be powerful but the people who view this flag. Now the next poem is the phrase book by Jo Schappcott. So the author herself is a recipient of the Queen's Gold Medal and she's a professor of creative writing at Holloway College. Schappcott is interested in science, sexual politics, identity, perspective, language and power and she often explores her subjects from an unusual perspective writing in one poem about the thoughts of a water particle and in a series of others adopting the voice of a brain diseased cow. Now when it comes to this particular poem military euphemisms such as collateral damage often hide the reality that it's supposed to describe. Schappcott's dramatic monologue imagines a confused and increasingly distressed woman trying desperately to decipher military jargon as the world of her TV set appears to enter her domestic existence. The scenario appears to be that of an English woman who is trapped somehow within a military conflict. She's trying to understand what's happening but needs a phrase book in order to translate the military jargon into ordinary language. Please write it down. Please speak slowly the poem states The language of propaganda and the sophisticated graphic media coverage from war zones combine with the speaker's sense of her own physicality and humanity to create an unsettling disorienting atmosphere. Notice how the word bliss is used to express a collision of two very different frames of reference. So the military pilots which is an acronym and it's a reminder of the evasive strategies needed to escape enemy fire once you can shelter and to the woman it's a word that evokes an erotic vision of tenderness and pleasure. If the meaning of bliss can become distorted the narrator appears to wonder whether the word love as well can be distorted. Now the other poem in this collection is Honour Killing by M.T.S. Darker. And M.T.S. Darker herself is a poet, artist and documentary filmmaker. Now the poem Honour Killing is a free verse poem and it's about the fight for freedom. It's about the freedom of being able to express oneself and live a life in a manner that's true to one's identity. In this poem a woman is standing up her right to be allowed to make her own choices about the way she represents herself. She doesn't want to be defined by a culture, spirituality, clothing or image in the community. And the narrator of the poem has expressed that she is following the silent crowd due to habit rather than desire and she no longer feels a need to be who she used to be. Now in the first stanza it's really about disowning an identity. The first line begins with at last which is how the readers are being told that they're looking into the end of a journey for somebody. The narrator goes on to disown her coat the coat being a garment meant to shield a person from harsh weathered conditions. So the statement enlightens a reader that she is stepping away from the protection of any kind and she makes decisions to speak out. The coat is further described as Black Coat of a Country and this description reveals to reader that the coat is not ordinary. It connects the narrator to her country and her identity. In line three she swears that she had once accepted the country to be part of identity stressing that the idea is something that she's moved past. In line four she exposes herself by saying that she'd worn this coat that coat is connected to a country and identity that she once owned as her own. However she did this out of habit and she is conveying that she plays very little thought and heart behind it. It was merely a habit. Line five makes it known to the reader that it wasn't the design of the coat that she liked signifying the value beliefs and traditions. She claims it was just simply an empty habit. The narrator seems to be disown in this coat and given justifications as to why she felt the need to renounce it and the last two lines of this stanza give the reader a better understanding of the narrator and her relationship to this coat. The second stanza begins with a really important line. Through the first line the reader discovers exactly what this black coat the narrator kept mentioning actually is. It's actually a veil. This is significant as it gives us a better cultural and perhaps religious background as to better understand the story of the narrator. The first line of this stanza is essentially a declaration. The narrator is declaring and announcing that she's getting rid of this veil. Lines nine and ten continue this declaration by describing in detail that it's not just the physical veil that she's disowning but also the faith that made her faithless. It's apparent by now that the narrator is struggling to connect with the person that she used to be. She doesn't want to be hidden behind a veil figuratively speaking and also literally. Line 11 helps the reader understand that this is more about the narrator herself than religion as she adds that the veil made her feel faithless to herself. This is noteworthy as it explains that she felt that wearing and holding on to this veil was an injustice to herself and what she felt was her true identity. Line 12 goes on to illustrate a tied mouth emphasizing that she felt restrained, held back and couldn't express herself the way she wanted to while being veiled. Lines 13 and 14 extremely powerful in conveying the narrator's anger and resentment to a previous self as she says the veil went as far as to give her God a devil's face and muffles her voice. These two lines of this stanza also allow the reader to be aware of the fact that she was struggling spiritually as well as while she was wearing the veil for the reason that it had started making her believe that her God was just trying to inflict her hardship which is something she would expect from the devil. This confusion and frustration that she feels just resulted into muting her own voice. It's difficult to speak up against something that's so common deeply embedded in one's community and culture. The narrator seemed to have struggled with the decision to step away from the veil because her environment was heavily in support of it which only facilitated in further silencing her thoughts, emotions and opinions. The third stanza is centered around the narrator's idea that in her experience her culture had began to strip her of her independence and unique identity. Line 15 is a statement freeing herself of the skills that are embedded in the culture to drape a woman's body and to enhance her femininity. The narrator doesn't want others to decide how a body should dress. Line 16 carries on the same idea as the narrator rejects lazy things. Again, wanted to decide for herself what she should choose to wear. Line 17 discloses what the narrator believes and she believes that by following the rule set for her and how she should be dressed she's feeding dictator dreams which is the last thing anyone wanting their own identity to be recognized by others would want. Lines 18 and 20 describe the narrator's point of view regarding a cultural jewellery stating that by abiding to these cultural dress codes she's been beggered of her true self. It appears that by dressing traditionally due to environment expecting her to the narrator feels trapped and stripped of any kind of individuality. The fourth stanza begins with the statement of independence and freedom and it's also the shorter stanza in the poem. The stanza is only three lines and it really allows us to focus on its message and draw attention to the importance of this poem. It begins with the narrator declaring that she's freeing herself of the skin, the skin being an essential part of anyone's body and identity and most intimate garment that a human body wears. By announcing that she's taken off the skin the narrator is detaching herself at every level from this culture that dictates who she should be. The next two lines continue to list other things that she's detaching from herself the face, the flesh, the womb. The face and flesh are again two things that aid informing one's identity, one that others can easily recognize and the womb is the most initial and intimate connection a person has to that identity. By disowning these things the narrator is emphasizing how deeply she wishes to sever her ties to the person identity she wants owned. In the fifth stanza it begins with the word let's see which implies that the narrator is moving on from making statements of what she's left behind to what she'll find in the future. It also implies that this stanza will focus on self analysis. Lines 26 to 28 discuss the narrator wanting to know if she can take these stans when the ideas and emotions in her heart squeeze past the easy cage of bone essentially meaning when her ideologies leave her body and meet the world she wonders if she will continue to stand up for herself. The sixth stanza barely concludes the poem even if it's the final stanza it barely finishes off the narrator's story in a comfortable way and it barely summarizes her relationship with her black quote. The first line again in this stanza begins with the word let's see directing the reader to the future for the second time. Line 29 suggests that she's made the choice in action of undressing herself of the whale and the jewellery and has come out of the cultural dictatorship that she's been enduring. She uses the words making, crafting, plotting to convey that she's improving or at least working towards becoming a person who creates and plans for herself instead of relying on following the exploitation of society. The final line of the poem heavily suggests that she's removed herself physically from the culture that was forcing her not to be herself and saying that she has a new geography. Whether this is a geography she's created for herself or one she's physically moved to the reader gets the impression that she took the steps she intended on taking and is now moved to a place either figurative or literal where she feels her identity has a chance of surfacing and being accepted. The next poem is Partition by Sajata Bhatt. Now Sajata Bhatt was born in India in 1956 and she grew up in Pune, India and the US. Now this poem essentially depicts a simple tale of a woman going to a railway station to provide for distressed people while her niece stays in her garden and wishes she could be brave enough to do the same. In the end though her partitions her patriotism lingers and she assists in letting her homeland live on by not letting go of its memory. Her lack of courage as it's labelled doesn't keep her from proving to be a patriot. This as well as a critical commentary regarding a tragic moment and consequence are the themes of the poem. In order to fully understand the ideas of this poem the reader must learn about the historical concepts at work within it. Generally speaking the poem regards the division of British India into Pakistan and India due to tension and dissension among groups within the territory. All of this poem is based around these moments of separation though from the method of focusing on a pair of women. Now starting from lines 1 to 6 What this series of lines depicts is a sense of juxtaposition in that this woman is in her garden and this is an idea that could create visions of lovely flowers and scents as well as calm and liveliness. This is paralleled by the choirs of the people that she could hear in noise that seemed endless. Within this juxtaposition the reader can infer that the concepts presented are a representation of the dissent that took place within this time period in the territory. Whereas greater calm once existed like a garden the tension proved shaking and endless. This is not to say that the territory was in a perfect state beforehand but there's little room to argue against the idea that this time period seemed to hold a heightened amount of stress. Whatever tension was prior could be noted as a snake within a garden dangerous but small and what was currently happening was much larger with noise and endless stress. This concept is mirrored in that this chaos was a new sound added to the city which indicates that previous turmoil existed. The current distress was new and elevated it. In regard to the storyline it begins with big terms specifically she experiences things that the reader has no understanding about who she is. In fact other than general terms like cries and garden the only particular information provided is Ahmedabad railway station and the choice of specificity in this detail only is important since it denotes that only the location and the idea that people were leaving are of importance. Who this happened to doesn't matter given the totality of the situation. Likely many other people endured distress so details about this she could be interchangeable with other people in the territory. Since this is a story of partition in the defined area Bart could not allow that information to be treated as completely universal. The story had to be about this territory and this situation. The anonymity of this person could be noted as a representation of the division of the territory and how it is done without the people in mind but categories. In this the pain of separation was overlooked for the sake of the decision to divide meaning no individual citizen mattered much like this woman is only referred to as she. Now line seven to nine essentially showed this woman's aunt on her father's side took action against this concept in a very small way by going to the station every day with food and water for those stranded there. By doing this this aunt displayed strength and care in the midst of turmoil that's quite admirable. From there however the narration returns to the she that is not labeled as of yet and in the confusing way. When the first she happens in this line of series the most currently noted female is the aunt rather than the original she. However given the context provided this woman this she the reader can refer that this woman is originally mentioned one. There's sudden an un clarified shift in focus could mirror the chaos and confusion at this time of partition. Just as the reader may not instinctively know who she is many people may not have known all of the details of what was happening around them in this confusing period. After the shift back to the initial she happens the narrator notes that she felt afraid and could not go with her aunt. That the word felt is used to address both of these concepts reinforces how strong her hesitancies were in regards to the situation. Her fear essentially was so strong that it needed to be reinforced with the second felt that was connected to a reaction that she couldn't go with her aunt. This word choice also lets the reader know she probably wanted to go but couldn't potentially because of the fear. In fact the narrator notes that each day she wish she had the courage to go rather she stood in the garden listening. This entails that she knew but did not react which could indicate the lack of bravery of strength on her part and unlike the aunt since each day passed with her listening to the crowds of people she felt but did nothing. Even though she didn't assist her aunt and instead waited on the sidelines she was still impacted by the birds sounding different while she was in the shadows. She'd hidden herself away from the situation best she could but she was still impacted. This comments on the territorial university of the harshness. No matter if people fought for or against it they added in the complacent manner meaning that they were impacted by this partition. Now in lines 20 to 25 the story shifts to first person perspective and reveals the identity of this she as the mother of the narrator given this tale of reach beyond those who around at the time of the partition. In particular this son or daughter hears a tell from his or her mother at midnight in their kitchen though the mother is 70 years old. This ages far past the 19 that was addressed in the first line of the poem so this memory is seemingly haunted for her over 50 years. This memory still wants her so much that she offers a son or daughter the story like a weight on her that must be lifted. This is reasonable given the amount of patriotism a person could have that is boosted because of a tragedy like this and the patriotic notion gains merit when she takes the time to know that India is older than the years that have passed since the partition. No matter her stress she must defend her home to remind her child that its history goes back farther than this time of chaos. In lines 26 to 37 the term all that haunts the mother is even more parent in these final lines since she admits she feels guilty about not having gone with her aunt. As soon as the details cemented though she reverts back to her lament for a homeland asking her child why something would be permitted to happen. The poem states How could there have let a man who knew nothing about geography divide a country? This shows the conflict is bigger than her own feelings since the separation is provided as a final thought of this poem. It's interesting that her calm about the man who divide the country is noted as him not understanding geography as if this is the detail that disqualifies him as being able to make such as call. More likely however Bart is referring to the man's lack of understanding of the tensions in British India that happened prior to partition. The trivial detail being used to express this idea shows how a too simple decision was made to divide the country. Just as something as basic as geography is a small reason to label this man unqualified in comparison to other faults the separation to India and Pakistan was a solution to the tension that was not necessarily thought out and potentially lacked sensibility. Basically it was an easy solution but Bart believes it was an incorrect solution. This seems to be the theme of the poem a commentary on the tragic time in solution as well as a lingering patriotism that the mother had not let go of. Overall India as it was lives on in the woman's memory an account. So that's all if you found this video useful just subscribe to our channel and give us a thumbs up but also make sure you visit our website www.firstrate tutors.com there you'll find plenty of revision materials model answers and exam questions that you can use to practice your knowledge in this anthology as well as other areas of English. Thank you so much for listening.