Sonnet - John Clare

John Clare's simply-titled 'Sonnet' of 1841 is a clear statement of his love of the English summer time. He begins with the phrase 'I love...', and this is repeated in the third line as well as the eleventh, with 'I like...' echoing in the ninth line.

Clare uses imagery to focus on the sights of nature that give him so much pleasure. In the first line, summer is personified as 'beaming forth'. In the second line he skilfully combines alliteration and metaphor in his description of 'white wool sack clouds': his comparison of clouds to wool is fitting in that it keeps the imagery within the domain of nature. Colours of flowers are emphasised in the fourth and fifth lines: 'Mare blobs stain with gold' and 'water lilies whiten'.

In line six, Clare turns to the sound of reeds that 'rustle like wind shook wood', again combining two figures of speech – this time simile and assonance. He expresses his love of watching the Moor Hen searching for her nest in the rushes as well as his admiration of the weeping willow beside the 'clear deep lake'. The long 'ee' sounds in the phrase 'clear deep' emphasis the peace and stillness of the water.

Clare watches flowers swaying and insects flying about in the hay grass in lines eleven and twelve. 'Swings', 'winds' and 'wings' within those two lines build up assonance and alliteration to create a pleasant atmosphere of gentle movement. The final two lines of the sonnet emphasise the fine summer weather and sunshine in the phrases 'bright day' and 'bright beetles'. The insects 'sport about the meadow', giving a feeling of play and enjoyment of the season and the sun. The sonnet ends with a return to the 'clear lake', echoing line ten and giving a sense of unity.

The sonnet is unusual in its lack of punctuation – there is not even a full stop at the end of the final line. The lack of commas or semi-colons allows one line to flow into the next and gives a sense of continuity. The rhyme scheme is, on the other hand, very straightforward and traditional, lending harmony to the sonnet. This is a poem to be appreciated for its simplicity, beautiful imagery and expression of love of nature.

I love to see the summer beaming forth

And white wool sack clouds sailing to the north

I love to see the wild flowers come again

And Mare blobs stain with gold the meadow drain

And water lilies whiten on the floods

Where reed clumps rustle like a wind shook wood

Where from her hiding place the Moor Hen pushes

And seeks her flag nest floating in bull rushes

I like the willow leaning half way o'er

The clear deep lake to stand upon its shore

I love the hay grass when the flower head swings

To summer winds and insects happy wings

That sport about the meadow the bright day

And see bright beetles in the clear lake play

John Clare

1841

October - Gillian Clarke

The first stanza of Gillian Clarke's poem 'October' sets an autumnal atmosphere for the poem. The metaphor of 'a dead arm' in line 2 for a branch of a tree that has broken forewarns us of the theme of the poem. Yet there is contrast here too, as the decay is seen against the 'bright' poplar trees whose leaves 'tremble gradually to gold'. Alliteration is skilfully used here as well as in the 'broken branch' and then again in line 4 as a 'sharp shower' turns the face of a stone lion a darker shade. This gloom is underlined at the end of the stanza where the lobelia, seen as the lion's 'dreadlocks', is changing from blue to brown as it dies. The imagery here is rich and describes both the beauty and decay of the season.

At the start of the second stanza, Clarke confronts us with the blunt phrase 'My friend dead', leaving us in no doubt as to the central focus of 'October'. The setting is the graveyard, where alliteration appears again as the coffin is carried to the 'hawthorn hedge'. Clarke portrays her lost friend as being but a slight burden in her coffin: 'lighter / than hare-bones on men's shoulders'. The mourners have 'stony' faces, echoing the statue of the lion from the first stanza. Rain mingles with tears, as there is 'weeping in the air'; there is a softer feel here than the 'sharp shower' stanza 1. Clarke describes the grave with the simile 'deep as a well', perhaps feeling that her friend will be separated from her by a considerable gulf. 'Thud' describes the heavy fall of the earth into the grave, while in contrast the alliterative 'fall of flowers' is a slow one, emphasising their lightness.

The final line of the second stanza consists merely of the phrase 'fall of flowers', and the opening line of the third and final stanza is indented to appear as a continuation of the preceding line, thus forming a stronger link between the second and third stanzas. This final stanza has a tremendous feeling of speed and urgency that is in sharp contrast to the initial part of the poem. Clarke's reaction to her friend's death is that of feeling a need to accomplish as much as possible before the time of her own death. In lines 12 to 13 of the poem she describes how 'the pen / runs faster than wind's white steps over grass'. Her pen is personified, and again alliteration creates a vivid image in 'wind's white steps'. The statement in line 14 'For a while health feels like pain' gives the impression that her grief for her friend was hard to bear at first. This feeling, however, was followed by 'panic', and the pace of the stanza increases again with phrases such as 'running the fields' and 'the racing leaves'. Clarke is desperate to capture the fleeting images of nature: 'holding that robin's eye / in the laurel'. Comparison with the speed of the wind is made once again in the simile of line 18: 'I must write like the wind'. Clarke ends her poem with a sense that she can win the struggle against time and the moment of her death as she continues writing, 'winning ground'.

'October' is a compact poem that gathers pace as it moves forward, beginning with leaves 'gradually' turning gold and ending with the need to 'write like the wind'. Out of the decay of the season of autumn and the sadness at the death of a friend comes motivation and the urgency to write faster and put the transient images of the changing seasons into words before time runs out. Language is used here to create powerful imagery with alliteration, metaphor, simile and contrast all playing a part. 'October' is a skilfully constructed poem that imparts a sense of using every available moment of life to the full.

Kid - Simon Armitage

From the first word of the poem we know that there is a connection here with Batman, and reading on we discover that the narrator here is his sidekick, Robin, now grown up and brimming with confidence.

This is a terrifically fast-paced poem, conveying a sense of the energy and exuberance of youth. The repetition of words ending in -er at the end of each of the twenty-four lines adds to the feeling of speed, with one line rushing into the next.

The poem is packed with witty, self-assured language, plays on words that leave us in no doubt that Robin is taking over the major role from Batman. Abandoned by the 'father figure' that he no longer needs, Robin tells us that he has now 'turned the corner'. He doesn't need to play second fiddle any more, as he tells us in line fourteen 'I'm not playing ball boy any longer'. He has cast off his garish green and red clothes and made his own choice of 'jeans and crew-neck jumper'. He paints a sad picture of Batman, now alone or 'without a shadow', with Robin taking over the role of hero: he triumphantly ends the poem with 'now I'm the real boy wonder.'

Taking a closer look at the language, Armitage has made skilful, witty use of imagery in this poem. There is the alliteration of 'let me loose to wander leeward' overlapping the assonance of 'leeward, freely' in lines 2 to 3 and the idiomatic 'let the cat out on that caper' in line 9. The twelfth and thirteenth lines present us with whole strings of hyphenated phrases that seem to rush along at breakneck speed: 'Holy robin-redbreast-nest-egg-shocker!' to describe Robin's reaction to Batman's brief affair with a married woman where he claimed expenses for dating her. The irony here too is the reference to 'robin-redbreast', as it appears that it was Robin himself who exposed Batman's behaviour in this incident.

In lines 20 to 21 we are presented with the image of Batman 'stewing over chicken giblets' – a clever metaphorical play on words, as Robin builds up a pitiful picture of Batman, now a fallen figure, not even having enough to eat, 'punching the palm of your hand all winter'. In the last line he audaciously refers to the formerly revered hero as 'baby' before making his final 'boy wonder' statement.

Armitage shows us here that even a superhero does not prevail for ever; the trusty sidekick grows up, builds up strength and confidence, and is soon ready to take over the leading role. It's a poem that any younger brother or downtrodden son with a domineering father can take inspiration from. Perhaps any hero-worshipping teenager, aspiring to be famous in one way or another, will find a theme to relate to here. As for the heroes themselves, be warned – one day, someone else is going to take over!

Anne Hathaway - Carol Ann Duffy

n her poem entitled 'Anne Hathaway', Carol Ann Duffy adopts the persona of Shakespeare's widow. The introductory quote from Shakespeare's will 'Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed' reminds us that Shakespeare's best bed was reserved for guests, and that Anne inherited the one that she and her husband slept in. This bed becomes the focus of the fourteen-line poem.

In the opening two lines, Duffy uses a metaphor to express the magic of the bed in which Shakespeare made love to Anne: it was 'a spinning world / of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas'. More metaphors follow in lines three and four as Anne Hathaway recalls their lovemaking; she expresses the notion that Shakespeare would 'dive for pearls', and she describes the sweet words he said to her as 'shooting stars' that landed on her lips when he kissed her.

From line five to line ten Duffy uses imagery in a fascinating way that relates directly to the fact that Shakespeare was a writer. Anne sees her body as 'a softer rhyme to his ... now assonance', assonance being a figure of speech in which the same vowel sound is repeated. Then follows the charming personification of his touch, portrayed as 'a verb dancing in the centre of a noun', giving a feeling of grace and delicacy. Anne says that she sometimes dreamed that Shakespeare had 'written' her, wishing that she herself were part of his artistic creation. She metaphorically imagines the bed as 'a page beneath his writer's hands'. She sees their lovemaking as drama enacted through 'touch', 'scent' and 'taste'.

In lines eleven and twelve a contrast is created to the early magic of the poem in the description of how the guests, in the best bed, 'dozed on, / dribbling their prose'; no poetic lovemaking for them! But line twelve then switches to Anne's alliterative description of Shakespeare as 'My living laughing love'. She tells us in line thirteen how she treasures her memories of him with the metaphor 'I hold him in .the casket of my widow's head'. The final line compares this act to the way in which Shakespeare held Anne so lovingly in that second-best bed. The last two lines are a rhyming couplet, just as the last two lines of a Shakesperian sonnet would be, ending the poem with a sense of unity.

Duffy's 'Anne Hathaway' is a poem full of rich imagery, the tale of a woman who remembers her husband in a wonderful, loving way with no hint of sorrow. It is beautiful to read and to dwell on the magical pictures that are painted within it.

Tichborne's Elegy - Chidiock Tichborne

Composed the night before his execution, Tichborne's Elegy piles metaphor upon metaphor to express his regret and frustration upon his life being cut short whilst he is still in his prime. He was only twenty-eight years old at the time, but was sentenced to death because he had been involved in a conspiracy to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I. Written in the first person, almost every line begins with the word 'I' or 'My', showing us how self-absorbed the poet was in his last hours.

The poem comprises three stanzas, each of six lines. The word 'but', appearing in each of the first four lines, might be translated as 'just' in contemporary English. The first line tells us that although the poet is young, his life is a 'frost', cold and joyless, and full of worries because of his actions and his impending death. The following line refers again to his life, or his youth, which should have been the most fulfilling period but instead is 'a dish of pain', a time that is hard to bear. Then there is an agricultural metaphor, in which the poet expresses the fact that his 'crop of corn' has actually yielded a field of weeds (tares), meaning that nothing worthwhile has resulted from his short life. Line 4 explains that the only way the poet has benefited from his life is in hoping to make an achievement, but he has not in fact done so. The following line begins 'The day is past', a metaphor meaning that the poet's life has ended, and concludes 'and yet I saw no sun' – nothing worthwhile or advantageous has resulted from his life. The final line of the first stanza is identical to the last line of the second and third stanzas, emphasizing the fact that although the poet is alive at the actual time of composing the poem, he knows that his life has virtually come to an end.

The second stanza continues the pattern of metaphors, 'My tale was heard' meaning that the poet has had a life, 'and yet it was not told' expressing the frustration that his life was not lived to the full. Tichborne then compares his life to a tree, where the fruit has ripened and fallen to the ground, because his life is about to end; but 'my leaves are green' tells us that he is still young. This same idea is clearly conveyed in line 9, and line 10 expresses the concept that although the poet 'saw the world', because he was born, he 'was not seen', as nothing positive has come of his short life. Another metaphor follows, 'My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun' telling us that his life is ending even though he has not lived it out. The stanza concludes in exactly the same way as the first one.

The opening of the third and final stanza shows us the the poet considers that he was doomed even before he was born, and that as his life progressed he sensed it was to be cut short. He feels that his life has only just begun and yet it is about to end. Line 17 is a metaphor centred around the image of an hourglass, a little device like an egg-timer through which sand runs from top to bottom in the space of a few minutes. Tichborne knows that because of his youth he should have years of his life left, but his 'glass is run', meaning that the sand has all passed through and his time on earth has run out. Once again, the final line is exactly like that of the first two stanzas.

The poem is regular in its rhythm and rhyme scheme; the repetition or similarity in the structure of many of the lines is offset by the abundant use of metaphors which are the highlight of this work. The poet focusses purely on his own situation here and there is no reference at all to loved ones he is leaving behind or to his fellow conspirators.

'Tichborne's Elegy' is a fine poem full of metaphorical imagery. There is perhaps an element of irony in that the poet expresses the idea that he has achieved nothing in his short life, and yet he composed a masterpiece on the eve of his execution. His frustration and deep regret in fact inspired him to do so; to create such a poem when he must have been in the depths of despair is to be wondered at.

Here is the full text of the poem:

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,

My feast of joy is but a dish of pain;

My crop of corn is but a field of tares,

And all my good is but vain hope of gain.

The day is past, and yet I saw no sun;

And now I live, and now my life is done.

My tale was heard, and yet it was not told,

My fruit is fallen, and yet my leaves are green;

My youth is spent, and yet I am not old,

I saw the world, and yet I was not seen.

My thread is cut, and yet it is not spun;

And now I live, and now my life is done.

I sought my death, and found it in my womb,

I looked for life and saw it was a shade;

I trod the earth, and knew it was my tomb,

And now I die, and now I was but made.

My glass is full, and now my glass is run;

And now I live, and now my life is done.

Chidiock Tichborne

1586

Mother - Simon Armitage

The central theme of Simon Armitage's poem 'Mother' is that of the bond between a mother and son, and the moment at which the son finally becomes independent as he embarks upon adult life. The poem is in fact an extended metaphor, as the situation described is that of the mother helping her son to measure up his new house. The son gradually moves further and further away, upstairs, extending the measuring tape, while his mother desperately holds on to the end of the spool.

Armitage begins the poem by saying 'any distance greater than a single span / requires a second pair of hands', recognising from the outset that he still needs his mother. As we are told that it is the measurements of a house that are being taken, Armitage uses metaphors such as 'the acres of the walls, the prairies of the floors' that convey an image of vast empty spaces: it's the first time that he has a house of his own, and there is a sense of adventure, exploring wide open spaces.

The opening line of the second stanza explains that it is the mother that is holding the 'zero-end' of the tape, thus being the stationary base, whilst the son is the one gradually moving away, taking the measurements. This eventually leads to him climbing the stairs, 'leaving', and the unwinding of the tape is seen as a metaphor for the years that the mother and son have spent together. The one-word 'sentences' 'Anchor. Kite.' close the second stanza and it is obvious that the anchor is the mother, whilst the kite is the son, about to fly away and experience independence.

In the third and final stanza, Armitage describes his tour of the bedrooms as a 'space-walk', once again making this sound like a great adventure. Going up into the loft, he realizes that this is 'breaking-point': the spool of tape has been fully extended, and if the son is to go any further, 'something / has to give'; either the mother or the son will have to let go. The mother, however, is described as pinching 'the last one-hundredth of an inch': we feel how desperately she is trying to hold on, she cannot bear to let her son go. The son, on the other hand, opens a hatch in the roof, knowing that he must keep on going. Outside the 'endless sky' awaits him, and the final brief line tells us that he will 'fall or fly': will success or failure meet him? He has no idea what the future holds, yet knows that he has to take this step and rely purely on his own resources for the first time.

The poem consists of two four-line stanzas and a third stanza of seven lines, of which two are extremely short. The length of lines throughout the whole poem is in fact very uneven, perhaps mirroring the situation where objects being measured are of varying lengths. Sentences, too, range from one brief word to an extension over five lines. Often one line spills over into the next, giving a sense of length of the relationship between mother and son, or of the ever-increasing distance between them as the son moves away.

It is also noticeable that in the first two stanzas the son directly addresses his mother: 'You come to help me' and 'You at the zero-end'. By the third stanza, however, the focus is on the son himself, and we are conscious of the first-person emphasis in phrases such as 'I space-walk' and then 'I reach / towards a hatch.' He is on his own now.

This is a carefully constructed poem that makes skilful use of pertinent imagery to convey its theme. The language itself is not emotional, yet we can feel the mother's reluctance and sense the mixture of adventure and trepidation that the son feels as he steps into adulthood. For me it is a masterpiece.

Blackberry picking - Seamus Heaney

This is one of Heaney's poems that centres on memories of his childhood, growing up on a farm in the Irish countryside. Here he recalls the annual experience of picking wild fruit in late summer.

Heaney uses assonance in his phrase 'glossy purple clot' to describe the first blackberry that ripened and stood out from others pictured with the simile as being still 'hard as a knot'. Heaney compares the taste of the first ripe berry to the sweetness of 'thickened wine'. He uses the metaphor 'summer's blood' to express the redness of the juice that led to a desire for more: 'lust for picking'. The reference to blood is the first suggestion of a less enjoyable or innocent experience.

The second part of the sixteen-line first stanza tells how they collected all the containers they could lay their hands on: 'milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots'. The rhythm of the list is repeated two lines later in 'hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills' whose bordering hedges offered the fruit for picking. Onomatopoiea in the phrase 'tinkling bottom' suggests the sound of the first few berries hitting the metal of the cans they were dropped into. An ominous picture is painted in the description of the ripe fruit on the top: 'big dark blobs burned like a plate of eyes'. Perhaps this reflects the vivid imagination of a child. The macabre imagery increases at the end of the first stanza, where Heaney uses the simile 'sticky as Bluebeard's' to describe the blackberry juice covering the palms of the children's hands as if it were blood, thus echoing the earlier metaphor of 'summer's blood'.

In the shorter second stanza, the pleasures of picking and tasting the first ripe berries soon fade away. The berries were 'hoarded' in the byre, but very quickly begin to go mouldy. The mould is described as a 'rat-grey fungus': the inclusion of the word 'rat' in the metaphor emphasizes the distaste of this deterioration. The smell and taste are focused on too. 'Stinking' makes no bones about the unpleasant smell, and the original sweet taste of the blackberries turns sour. The following line reminds us that the poet is speaking here as a child: 'I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair...' Then once again the smell is recalled: 'all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot'. In the last line, Heaney remembers that he always hoped the blackberries would last once they had been picked, but inside realised that this was impossible.

It is interesting to compare this with another poem of Heaney's, 'Death of a Naturalist'. Both of them centre on childhood memories that begin as innocent, pleasurable experiences rooted in nature, but both end in disillusion. Nature's beauty and sweetness do not endure. The desire for the experience ends in revulsion. There is even a parallel in the structure of the two poems with the extended first stanza followed by a more compact second one that describes a change, the moment of disillusion and disgust.

Heaney addresses all the senses with his imagery and hints here and there among his initial admiration and enjoyment that things are perhaps not all they seem. The innocence of childhood and the wonders of nature are transient, and disappointment has to be confronted.

Half-Caste

Born in Guyana, South America, in 1949 to parents of mixed nationality, John Agard came to live in Britain in 1977. His poem 'Half-Caste' demonstrates the attitude of narrow-minded people that he must have encountered, who consider people of mixed parentage to be inferior to themselves. The poem is written in non-standard English, in other words in exactly the way that the poet, a non-native speaker, might speak and with the words spelled exactly as they would sound. Whilst contributing to the humour of the poem, it might be confusing for some readers.

The poem opens with a short, sharp three-line stanza in which Agard explains that he is standing on one leg because he is half-caste; it's as though he is saying 'What do you expect, if you consider me to be only half a person, then I would only have one leg.' The poet addresses the reader in a very direct way when he says, 'Explain yuself / wha yu mean / when yu say half-caste', taking the stance that the reader is one of the people who looks down on those of mixed nationality. His argumentative tone continues throughout the poem and emphasizes the fact that those he is addressing have no foundation for their attitude.

Besides the non-standard language itself, the imagery that the poet uses is very humorous and provides an interesting juxtaposition to the criticisms being levelled at certain people. In the second stanza, Agard takes very famous people, namely Picasso and Tchaikovsky (but doesn't give their names capital letters) and says, for example,

'when yu say half-caste

yu mean when picasso

mix red and green

is a half-caste canvas/'

The point he is making here is that Picasso used complementary opposite colours, red and green, but of course nobody questioned that because he was a genius. He was respected. Similarly,

'when yu say half-caste

yu mean tchaikovsky

sit down at dah piano

an mix a black key

wid a white key

is a half-caste symphony/'

This example is perhaps even more potent, since the black and white keys would seem a direct parallel to black and white people. It is obvious that a composer would use both black and white keys of a piano: nobody would question such a thing, so Agard's point is that people of mixed nationality, having one black parent and one white parent, should be accepted in the same way as Tchaikovsky's music is.

Agard further comments that the English weather 'nearly always half-caste' and extends the comparison with a humorous pun: 'in fact some o dem cloud / half-caste till dem overcast'. Giving us such obvious examples of mixtures and half-and-half combinations from culture and climate serves to show how ridiculous it is to look down upon people of mixed nationality.

In the third stanza the poet continues to use examples, this time relating to his own body, to show the absurdity of the concept of being 'half-caste'. He says he is looking at the reader with the 'keen half' of his ear and his eye, as though his ears and eyes would be split in half because he is of mixed parentage. He continues in humorous vein, going on to say that he would only offer 'half-a-hand' when being introduced to the person he is addressing, and that he just closes 'half-a-eye' and dreams 'half-a-dream' when asleep. Another witty play on words follows with the phrase 'I half-caste human being / cast half a shadow'.

The word 'but' in line 47 heralds the final section of the poem, in which Agard asks the reader to return the following day with the 'whole' of their eye, ear and mind; in other words, he is asking the people he is addressing to open up their minds to a new way of thinking. He is in effect accusing them of being the ones to have only half their minds functioning and half their ears listening to him: in other words, if anyone is half-caste, it is those who look upon him as being inferior. The poem ends in a similar way to that in which it began, with a brief, three-line stanza that simply says that Agard will tell people the other half, or other side, of his story if they will come back and listen to him with an open mind. An open mind will allow them to see him as the person he really is, rather than some inferior being.

The poem flows along through its four stanzas of varying length and lines also of varying length, unrestricted by punctuation; there are two forward slashes in the second stanza indicating a break or pause, but not one full-stop. Capital letters are also very few and far between, not being used, as I have mentioned for Picasso or Tchaikovsky. The lack of restrictions of regularity in terms of line length and stanza length, as well as sentence structure, indicate a desire for openness and freedom which suit the theme of the poem.

Agard likes to perform his poems, and it is easy to imagine how powerful a message could come across in this way. Even from reading it, we sense the forcefulness in the manner in which the poet is addressing those he is speaking to, and he would I am sure convey this even more directly in a performance. For those of us who do not have the chance to experience this, we can still sense how outraged he is by the idea that a person of mixed nationality is any less than anyone else, yet he captures our imagination with his imagery and entertains us with his humour to convince us to listen to his way of thinking.

Blessing

Set in a village in Pakistan, Imtiaz Dharker's poem 'Blessing' opens with the simile 'The skin cracks like a pod' that immediately gives an impression of drought, of dire shortage of water. This is confirmed by the second line of the brief introductory stanza, formed of two sentences of one line each.

As we enter the four-line second stanza, we are in no doubt as to the fact that the villagers here are desperate for water. Dharker involves the reader by asking us to 'Imagine the drip of it' – telling us how small the quantity is – and focuses on the sound of that drop of water resounding in a tin mug. The fourth line of this stanza introduces the first religious reference: even this small splash is personified as 'the voice of a kindly god'. God is seen as the provider of water, and every drop received is seen as a kind gesture.

The third stanza is the longest one, extending for eleven lines and describing a momentous event in the village. The bursting of a municipal pipe is a fortuitous occasion: it is described by the metaphor 'the sudden rush/of fortune'. Fortune of course has connotations of large sums of money as well as good luck, so the water that spills has tremendous value. This idea is echoed in another metaphor for the water in line nine: 'silver crashes to the ground'. The sound is a powerful one. Line ten flows into line eleven, and the water is described as a 'flow' that gives rise to a sudden burst of noise from the villagers, 'a roar of tongues'. The people rushing out from their huts to collect the water are refered to as a 'congregation', which is another religious link. Men, women and children from the surrounding area are eager for their share of the spilled water and come with any container they can lay their hands on, listed in the brief lines fourteen, fifteen and sixteen. The stanza concludes with the phrase 'frantic hands', which once again emphasises the desperation that leads the villagers to scoop even handfuls of water.

Dharker uses enjambment to link the third stanza to the fourth and final one. This focuses on the village children, on sound and bright light. The children, naked, are delighting in the chance to bathe in the water, 'screaming in the liquid sun'. This metaphor aligning the water to the sun emphasises the pleasure and warmth of the experience. The 'highlights' in line twenty are echoed by 'flashing light' in the following line, giving a further impression of joy. Alliteration is used by Dharker in the phrases 'polished to perfection', and 'the blessing sings' combines alliteration and assonance, creating vivid imagery to portray the thrill of the occasion. The word 'blessing' continues the religious thread running through the poem. The final line again flows from the previous one: '... sings/over their small bones'. It is a gentle ending, focusing on the children of the village who are in such need of this water provided by accident.

The sentence that begins in line eight, the second line of the third stanza, continues right through to the end of the poem, flowing through from one line to the next like the water that is its theme. This is in stark contrast to the two sentences of the first stanza. Dharker has not set her poem within the confines of stanzas of regular length, suiting each stanza to its individual focus. The lines themselves also vary considerably in length. Lines nine, ten and thirteen have the rhyme ground, found and around, but this appears almost as an unintentional occurrence.

'Blessing' is a wonderfully descriptive poem, using imagery to depict sight and sounds and create an atmosphere of frantic joy for an everyday resource that is usually so elusive in this particular setting.

This Room

The first stanza of Imtiaz Dharker's poem 'This Room' creates an impression of seeking freedom, where her room is 'breaking out' of its confines and seeking 'space, light, empty air'. Change is afoot, a broadening of the horizon; an out-of-the-ordinary event seems to be taking place.

Dharker personifies the bed at the beginning of the second stanza as 'lifting out of its nightmares'. All negativity is being left behind, as chairs move out of their usual 'dark corners'. Heights are aimed for: alliteration and metaphor are used to create an image as the chairs 'crash through clouds'.

A positive tone is set at the beginning of the third stanza with the lines “This is the time and place / to be alive'. Line twelve uses the metaphor 'the daily furniture of our daily lives / stirs' to express the idea of breaking out of one's routine 'when the improbable arrives'. A special event takes place but is not identified in the poem. Lines fourteen to fifteen introduce a description of the sounds and movements of kitchen utensils that 'bang together / in celebration, clang' and eventually 'fly' past the fan. They seem to be following the chairs skyward. The garlic, onions and spices are personified as a 'crowd' in this kitchen where all the components seem to be joining in some sort of celebration. 'No one is looking for the door' in line eighteen, the end of the third stanza, could be confusing: the poem appears to be about reaching beyond the confines of our ordinary everyday lives. But of course 'No one is looking for the door' need not be taken literally, as it can mean that no one wants to leave this place because there is something to celebrate here.

The first person is not used until the fourth stanza: 'I'm wondering where / I've left my feet'. The atmosphere is one of 'excitement', expressed by the fact that the narrator is apparently confused as to where her body physically is. Dharker uses enjambment to connect the fourth stanza to the fifth, which consists of one solitary line that describes how the narrator's hands are 'outside, clapping', emphasising once more the idea of celebration.

This is no straightforward poem, but rather an extended metaphor to describe an occasion when daily routine can be broken away from, left behind. The structure is irregular, with the third stanza being considerably longer than the other four, and the final one being just one line that attracts attention to the idea of being 'outside, clapping' – celebrating escape from the mundane, perhaps. There is an original use of imagery here that makes the poem a fascinating expression of an idea.