The Laboratory, by Robert Browning

The subtitle to Robert Browning's poem “The Laboratory”, “Ancien Regime”, tells us that it is set in France before the revolution, when the old regime of the monarchy was still in place. The poem is a dramatic monologue. The narrator appears to be a woman, a fact which is not apparent in the opening stanza, but becomes so as the poem develops.

In the first stanza, the narrator addresses another person using the terms 'thou' and 'thy', which are the old-fashioned familiar forms of 'you' and 'your'. She is putting on a mask and watching the person in the laboratory through a haze of smoke: 'thro' these faint smokes curling whitely'. The narrator refers to the laboratory as 'this devil's-smithy', which is the first sign that something sinister is going on. The final line of this stanza leaves us in no doubt of this, as the woman asks, 'Which is the poison to poison her, prithee?' The repetition of 'poison' emphasises its importance.

The opening phrase of the second stanza, 'He is with her,' suggests that the narrator has asked for poison to be concocted because she is jealous. It would seem that her lover has deserted her for another woman. She says that they think she is crying and has gone to pray in 'the drear / Empty church'. The couple, meanwhile, are making fun of her, stressed by the repetition of 'laugh' in line 7. The stanza closes with the brief phrase 'I am here', emphasising the setting of the laboratory which is in such sharp contrast to the church.

The phrase 'Grind away' at the start of the third stanza shows the woman's eagerness for the chemist to make the poison. Browning brings the description alive by using alliteration in the phrases 'moisten and mash' and 'Pound at thy powder'. The narrator is not in a hurry and says she would rather watch the concocting of the poison than be dancing at the King's court.

In the fourth stanza the narrator comments on the ingredients of the poison. The chemist is mixing it with a pestle and mortar, and the woman describes the gum from a tree as 'gold oozings', giving the impression that it is both beautiful and valuable. She then looks at a blue liquid in a 'soft phial', finding the colour 'exquisite'. She imagines that it will taste sweet because of its beautiful appearance and is surprised that it is a poison.

Stanza five begins with the narrator wishing she possessed all the ingredients, which she refers to as 'treasures'. Browning uses personification to describe them as 'a wild crowd', and the woman considers them as 'pleasures', a sinister attitude to poisonous substances. The use of the adjective 'invisible' means that just a tiny amount would be required. The narrator delights in the thought of being able to carry 'pure death' in any one of a list of small accessories, such as an earring or a fan-mount.

In the sixth stanza the narrator turns her thoughts to how easy it will be at court to give 'a mere lozenge', like a sweet, that will kill a woman in just half an hour. She names two women in this stanza, Pauline and Elise, and it is not clear if one of them is the current target of her jealousy and desire to murder. She delights at the thought of Elise dying, and Browning uses enjambment to create the list 'her head / And her breast and her arms and her hands', perhaps because she is jealous of Elise's beauty.

The seventh stanza opens with the sudden exclamation 'Quick!' and the narrator is now excited as the poison is ready. She then reveals her disappointment, however, as its colour is 'grim', unlike the blue liquid in the phial. She hoped that it would make her intended victim's drink look so appetising that she would be encouraged to drink it. In the eighth stanza she is concerned about how tiny the amount of poison is: 'What a drop!' She says that the other woman is considerably bigger than her, and thinks that she 'ensnared' or caught the man in her trap because of her size. The narrator is not convinced that the drop of poison will be fatal: 'this never will free / The soul from those masculine eyes'. It will not be enough to stop the victim's pulse, which the narrator describes as 'magnificent'.

In the ninth stanza the narrator recounts, in lines using enjambment, how she had gazed at the other woman the previous evening when her ex-lover was with whispering to her. She had hoped that by staring at her she 'would fall shrivelled'. This obviously did not happen, but the narrator knows that the poison will do its work. Stanza ten has slightly shorter lines than the others, and the narrator addresses the chemist directly. She knows that the poison will act quickly, but she does not want her victim to have an easy death: 'Not that I bid you spare her the pain'. Browning uses alliteration in a cluster of three to describe how the narrator wants the other woman to suffer the effects of the poison, in the phrase 'Brand, burn up, bite'. The stanza ends with the narrator commenting that her ex-lover will always have the memory of the pain on the dying woman's face, and she appears to relish this thought.

The narrator asks the chemist if the poison is ready at the start of the eleventh stanza. She asks him to remove her mask and not to be 'morose', or gloomy. The poison will be lethal for her victim, and she does not want the mask to stop her having a good look at it. She describes it with the alliterative phrase 'a delicate droplet', and alliteration appears again as she comments 'my whole fortune's fee!' meaning that it has cost her everything she owns. In the closing line of the stanza, she wonders if she herself can be harmed by the poison, considering the effect it will have on her victim.

The twelfth and final stanza begins with the narrator once again showing how much the poison is costing her. She tells the chemist 'Now take all my jewels, gorge gold to your fill', and the alliteration in the phrase 'gorge gold' adds emphasis. She shows her gratitude by telling the chemist, whom she addresses as 'old man', that he may kiss her on her lips if he would like to. She asks him, however, to 'brush this dust off' her, referring to traces of poison, as she is afraid it will harm her too: 'lest horror it brings'. The poem ends as she proclaims that she will 'dance at the King's!' a triumphant announcement. Whether or not her victim dies from ingesting the poison, we do not know, but she shows no remorse and is obviously determined to go through with her murderous plan.

Browning has used an anapaestic metre in “The Laboratory”, in other words two stressed syllables followed by one unstressed one. This gives the lines of poetry an upbeat, fast-paced rhythm that convey the woman's excitement at the idea of poisoning her victim. Browning has created a character who is totally ruthless and eaten up by jealousy, determined to carry out an act of revenge that will prove fatal to another woman.

In his book “Revise the English and English Literature Anthology,” Tony Childs states that the narrator of “The Laboratory” is based on an imaginary incident in the life of Marie Madeleine Marguerite D'Aubray Brinvilliers (1630-76). In reality, she killed her father and two brothers by poisoning them and also planned to poison her husband. Although her victims were all male, Browning has adapted the character into a dangerously jealous woman targeting her ex-lover's new female interests. His portrait of her is utterly convincing.

In her poem “Stealing,” Carol Ann Duffy takes on the persona of a criminal who appears to have no regrets. The poem opens with the narrator repeating a question, 'The most unusual thing I ever stole?' It seems that he or she is being questioned by someone who is curious about the thefts. The thief's answer to the question is 'A snowman,' which certainly is an unusual thing to steal. The description is poetic: 'He looked magnificent: a tall, white mute / beneath the winter moon.' Enjambment allows for an extended image; it is noticeable that there are three words beginning with the letter 'm' here. Two more appear in the following sentence: 'mate' and 'mind'. The thief explains his desire to have the snowman, using the simile that his mind was 'as cold as the slice of ice / within my own brain.' The coldness of the two minds conveys the idea that the thief is a person with no feelings, a harsh criminal. Duffy uses rhyme within the simile in 'slice of ice', creating a vivid image. The first stanza ends with a simple sentence in which the thief recounts that he stole the snowman's head first.

The second stanza opens with the thief stating bluntly that it would be better to die rather than give up on the idea of stealing something you want: 'Better off dead than giving in.' He remembers how heavy the snowman was when he carried the 'torso' close to his own chest and the intense coldness penetrated his own body: 'a fierce chill / piercing my gut.' The phrase that follows, 'part of the thrill', forms a rhyme with 'chill', although 'thrill' is not at the end of the line. What gave the thief a thrill was the thought of children waking up the next morning and crying when they saw that the snowman had gone. This is another obvious clue to the harshness of the thief. He ends the second stanza with the brief statement 'Life's tough.' The shortness of the sentence gives it punch, and again shows the thief's lack of remorse. We sense that life has been hard for him and he wants to pay back, even if the ones who suffer are children.

At the beginning of the third stanza, the thief goes on to say 'Sometimes I steal things I don't need'. This perhaps suggests a sense of boredom. He says 'I joy-ride cars', but it is just for the sake of it, not because he has to go somewhere. Then again he burgles houses purely out of curiosity. Line 13 contains another three words beginning with the letter 'm': 'I'm a mucky ghost, leave a mess, maybe pinch a camera.' This line, however, is much less poetic than the description of the snowman in the first stanza, using slang words such as 'mucky' and 'pinch'. The last two lines of the stanza describe the way that the thief, with a 'gloved hand', opens the door of a bedroom where a stranger is sleeping. 'Mirrors' is a single word sentence that continues the thread of words beginning with 'm'. He ends with a description of his sigh, 'Aah,' which is set in italics for emphasis, as he sees the reflection of someone asleep.

Stanza four returns to the occasion of stealing the snowman: 'It took some time.' The thief 'reassembled' the snowman in his own garden, but it looked different. He decided to kick it and break it, showing a streak of vandalism: 'I took a run / and booted him. Again. Again.' The repetition of 'Again' in one-word sentences stresses his determination and also gives the impression that he was starting to lose control of himself. The alliterative description 'My breath ripped out / in rags' emphasises desperation, and the idea of rags underlines the destructive act. Looking back, the thief realises that it was a senseless thing to do: 'It seems daft now', but this sentence makes us feel that at the time the thief was completely wrapped up in his desire to destroy the snowman. The stanza ends once again with a simple sentence, 'I was sick of the world.' The thief does not seem to have been capable of any positive thoughts, or any optimism.

The fifth and final stanza opens with another one-word sentence: 'Boredom.' That seems to be what pushes the narrator to steal, and he continues 'Mostly I'm so bored I could eat myself.' This is a person who cannot find anything constructive to do with his time. He then says that he once stole a guitar and considered learning to play it. He obviously didn't do so, but it is the only positive idea that he mentions during the poem. 'I nicked a bust of Shakespeare once, / flogged it' means that he stole the bust and sold it. The words 'nicked' and 'flogged' are reminiscent of the slang in line 13, and form a sharp contrast with the literary connotations of an object representing Shakespeare. In the penultimate line, the thief remarks again that the snowman was the strangest thing he ever stole. The poem ends with the question 'You don't understand a word I'm saying, do you?' It creates a feeling of alienation and implies that the person he is talking to will not be able to see his point of view or help him to overcome his compulsion to steal.

Duffy has composed 'Stealing' in five regular stanzas of five lines each, and the fact that the third stanza moves away from the theft of the snowman but the fourth stanza returns to it gives the poem a certain symmetry. The use of enjambment where one line runs through to the next to create a fuller description contrasts effectively with the abrupt, one-word sentences dotted here and there. Rhyme is used in an unusual way as in 'slice of ice', and slang phrases give a sense of genuine conversation.

The narrator here, the thief, is a cold-hearted character who gets a thrill out of depriving people of their belongings and even upsetting children. His life has obviously been hard and the fact that he refers to boredom probably means that he is unemployed. Duffy has portrayed a character that, as hard-hearted as he is, needs help from the society that he cannot conform to.

Salome, by Carol Ann Duffy

Two references in the New Testament of the Bible, in the Gospels according to Mark and Matthew, give us the background to the character of Salome. Briefly, she danced for King Herod who was so delighted that he said he would give Salome whatever she asked for. Salome, prompted by her mother Herodias, asked for the head of John the Baptist, who had said that Herodias' marriage to Herod was unlawful. Herod had no choice but to send an executioner to John the Baptist, who was in prison. His head was brought to Salome 'in a dish', and she presented it to her mother.

In her poem “Salome”, Carol Ann Duffy adopts the persona of the dancer, but she doesn't sound like a biblical character at all. The impression is of a contemporary girl or young woman. The narrator tells us at the start of the poem 'I'd done it before' and says she will probably do it again: do what again? Salome has woken up with a head on the pillow next to her, and she doesn't even know whose it is. She doesn't seem to think that's important, either. It may not sound too out of the ordinary; people might have too much to drink and not remember what happened when they wake up the next morning. Salome tells us that the man is 'Good-looking' with 'dark hair'; so far, so good. Then, however, she says that the hair is 'rather matted' and that the beard is a lighter shade of red than it had been. It begins to sound as though the head is blood stained. Salome goes on to say that the 'deep lines around the eyes' could be caused by laughter, but she thinks more likely by pain. His mouth is 'crimson', another sign of blood. When she kisses his lips, they are 'Colder than pewter', a simile that tells us that he is dead. She tries to remember his name: 'Peter?' ends the first stanza.

Duffy links the second stanza with the first by opening it with more possible names: “Simon? Andrew? John?” They are all names of Jesus' disciples, and this is the first direct biblical reference. Salome then turns to her need to treat her hangover, wanting tea with 'dry toast'. The fact that she 'rang for a maid' makes it clear that she is from a high-class family. (Salome was the step-daughter of King Herod.) When the maid comes up with breakfast, Salome appreciates the 'innocent clatter' of the crockery, the tidying up, and the maid's conversation, described as her 'regional' patter. The second stanza closes with Salome's admission that she has a hangover and is in a dreadful state after a night on the tiles: 'wrecked as I was from a night on the batter.'

The third stanza opens with the brief but clear announcement 'Never again!' The focus now switches to Salome's determination to 'clean up' her act. She is determined to get fit, as well as to give up alcohol ('booze'), cigarettes ('fags') and sex – a cluster of three. As her thoughts turn to sex, she realises that she has to 'turf out' the man she slept with the previous night. She refers to him initially as the 'blighter', giving the impression of a nuisance, then the 'beater or biter', alluding to either physical violence or sexual perversion, perhaps. The stanza ends with the description that he had come to bed 'like a lamb to the slaughter', a simile that has biblical connotations and is ironic as he has in fact been killed.

The fourth and final stanza, which is also the shortest, begins with Salome looking at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes 'glitter' – is it from a thought in her mind, or could it even be tears? She makes a sudden action, flinging back the sheets that are 'sticky red' with blood. Her comment on what she sees is 'ain't life a bitch', but actually it seems that Salome herself is the bitch. In the poem's closing line, she reveals that under the sheets is the man's head 'on a platter', just the way that John the Baptist's head had been brought to Salome.

One of the most striking elements of the poem “Salome” is Duffy's skilful use of language. There are alliterative phrases, such as 'clatter / of cups', 'clearing of clutter' and 'the blighter / the beater or biter', the last of which are also half rhymes. Running throughout the poem is a series of words ending in '-er': 'lighter', 'laughter' and 'pewter', for example, in the first stanza; these are also half rhymes. Others are complete rhymes but are dotted around in the poem: 'matter', 'flatter', 'clatter', 'batter', 'latter', and the final word 'platter'. Duffy avoids a restricting, traditional rhyming pattern, but the use of rhyme here and there throughout creates a unity, like a thread running through. Some of these words, such as 'clutter' and 'clatter' are also onomatopoeic. They add to the poem's fast rhythm which is in keeping with Salome's coldness or lack of emotion. The four stanzas are all of different lengths, and the lines vary between short, medium and long quite randomly. It is as though thoughts are popping in and out of Salome's mind as she deals with her hangover and flits from one pattern of thought to another. Duffy uses ellipsis twice in the first stanza, 'how to flatter …' to create a pause; she also uses enjambment here and there to extend an idea or a description.

“Salome” is a poem that shocks by the narrator's flippant attitude, and Duffy achieves this effect perfectly. The language itself is informal, contemporary and includes a few slang phrases such as 'a night on the batter' or 'ain't life a bitch'. Above all, the combination of the poem's rhythm and Duffy's skilful use of rhyme and half rhyme throughout the poem give an almost humorous tone to the dark theme. “Salome” paints a picture of decadence, of a dancer who has revelled in nights filled with alcohol, smoking and sex. Just when she realises the error of her ways and decides things will have to change, she discovers the severed head under the sheets. Duffy brings the poem to a dramatic conclusion, saving this image for the final line. 

Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney

With the title 'Mid-Term Break' Heaney suggests that this is a poem focusing on a childhood memory. This was, however, no happy break from school. The first stanza does not explain what the reason for the break was, but Heaney's wait in the sick bay sets up a feeling that something is wrong. The use of the word 'knelling' rather than 'tolling' for the school bell has connotations of death. We discover during the course of the poem that Heaney was returning home for the funeral of his younger brother who had been killed in a road accident.

The second stanza shows how devastating this tragic accident was for Heaney's family. Heaney remembers that he met his father 'crying- / He had always taken funerals in his stride'. The third stanza, in contrast, opens with a description of the baby of the family that 'cooed and laughed and rocked the pram', showing that in some aspects family life went on as usual amid the grief.

The third and fourth stanzas are linked by enjambment and by the description of Heaney's feelings on confronting those who had come to pay their respects. Heaney felt 'embarrassed / By old men' as they stood up, shook his hand and expressed their sorrow. It must indeed have been strange and probably uncomfortable for a young boy to find himself in a situation of reversed roles. He was aware of 'whispers' as acquaintances told strangers that he was the eldest child of the family and attended boarding school.

The fourth and fifth stanzas are also linked by enjambment and show how different Heaney's mother's reaction to the event was from his father's. As she held his hand she 'coughed out angry tearless sighs', conveying the sense that she was too upset to cry but sensitive to the need of her eldest child for comfort.

In the fifth stanza Heaney describes in a matter-of-fact way that the ambulance brought the 'corpse', giving a sense that at first Heaney could perhaps not think of the body as being that of his brother. The tone changes, however, in the sixth stanza as Heaney goes up alone to see his brother's body the following morning. He describes the presence of snowdrops and candles as soothing the bedside; this is a transferred epithet, as they actually soothed his feelings. Heaney again uses enjambment to link this stanza with the seventh, mentioning that his brother now looked paler than the last time he had seen him six weeks previously. He uses the metaphor 'Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple', poppies being the colour of blood as well as a symbol of the dead. Heaney uses the word 'box' rather than coffin, and is reminded as he looks at his brother of the way he saw him in his cot. The final line of the seventh stanza tells us that the little boy had no 'gaudy scars' as the car knocked him to one side rather than running over him.

'Mid-Term Break' ends with a single line in contrast to the previous stanzas which are each three lines long. 'A four foot box, a foot for every year' describes poignantly how young the boy was and how tiny his coffin was. Heaney reserves the use of rhyme for the final two lines of the poem, where 'clear' and 'year' form a rhyming couplet.

The poem begins with factual statements almost devoid of emotion. It then moves through a phase of describing discomfort and difficult emotions in the presence of strangers, where the sentences become more complex. As Heaney reaches the point where he spends time alone with his brother's body, there is a feeling of calm. It is, however, extremely moving. Such a tragedy must have had a profound effect on Heaney and this poem conveys his feelings beautifully.

The Eagle - Alfred Tennyson

Composed in 1851, Tennyson's poem 'The Eagle' is a brief but vivid glimpse into the world of this powerful bird. In the initial three-line stanza, the eagle is pictured in a lofty position, on a crag 'close to the sun'. Tennyson uses alliteration in the first line: 'He clasps the crag with crooked hands', a hard 'c' sound recurring and then continuing in the word 'Close' at the beginning of the second line. The harsh consonant suggests the lack of comfort on this mountain top. Rather than using a word such as claws or talons, Tennyson likens the eagle to a person with the term 'hands'. The alliteration of the phrase 'lonely lands' in the second line emphasises the bird's solitude. In the final line of the third stanza, the eagle is seen is being 'Ring'd with the azure world”, in other words the sky, so once again his elevated position is focused on.

The opening line of the second stanza switches to the view below the mountain top in the personifying phrase 'The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls'. The waves are reduced to the size of wrinkles, again emphasising how far above the sea the eagle is. In the second line, the eagle is watching 'from his mountain walls', making his position sound secure, protected. In the final line, Tennyson uses a simile to create an image of the bird's swift and powerful descent on his prey: 'And like a thunderbolt he falls.'

The rhyming triplets used in each stanza give a feeling of harmony, where a creature is at one with its environment. The rhythm serves to reinforce this atmosphere. In the second and third lines of the first stanza, the stress falls on the first syllable – 'Close' and 'Ring'd' – again emphasising the eagle's position high up and in the centre of the sky.

In a mere six lines of poetry, Tennyson has constructed a masterly portrayal of the eagle in its natural surroundings.

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

Close to the sun in lonely lands,

Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

He watches from his mountain walls,

And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Alfred Tennyson

1851

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.

Cold Knap Lake - Gillian Clarke

Gillian Clarke's poem 'Cold Knap Lake' centres around a childhood memory of a girl almost drowning in a lake in Glamorgan (South Wales). The poet, with her parents, 'watched a crowd' of people pull the girl out of the water. It seemed at first that they were too late: the girl's lips were blue and she 'lay for dead'. The metaphor 'dressed in water's long green silk' tells us that she was covered in weeds from the lake.

In the second stanza, Clarke describes her mother as a 'heroine' as she knelt down to resuscitate the girl. The act of kneeling, 'her red head bowed', perhaps suggests a religious act. The mother seems to have been part of the whole rescue operation, 'her wartime cotton frock soaked'. The mention of her red hair is in sharp contrast to the girl's blue lips and gives a feeling of life. Clarke was obviously struck by the idea of her mother reviving 'a stranger's child' with 'her breath'. The crowd of onlookers dare not speak but are compelled to watch, as Clarke tells us in the alliterative phrase 'drawn by the dread of it'.

The third stanza tells us that the girl began breathing; 'bleating' suggests the idea of a baby animal calling for its mother. She is now 'rosy in my mother's hands', the color assuring that she is alive. The poet's father took the girl back to her home; we are told that she came from a poor family. Rather than expressing gratitude for the fact that she survived, her parents 'thrashed' her for having got herself into such danger.

The question 'Was I there?' that opens the fourth stanza signals a change in the poem. It stands out, as it is the shortest line in the entire poem and comes at the beginning of a stanza. It suggests that the poet, now of course an adult, is unsure as to whether she actually saw the girl being beaten or whether this is something her father told her about. The following five lines of the stanza form one long question that centres around an extended metaphor where the waters of the lake represent the memory. This second question refers to the 'troubled surface' of both the mind and the water. The imagery here is rich, from the alliteration of 'surface something else/shadowy' continuing with the personification of the 'dipped fingers of willows', which links back to the fingers of the child in the water. The 'satiny mud blooms' of line 18 are reminiscent of 'water's long green silk' in the first stanza. The 'cloudiness' of the muddy water is a symbol of the haziness of our memories. The assonance in the phrase 'treading heavy webs' in the following line creates a vivid image where it is the webbed feet of swans that are disturbing the water, just as certain events provoke unclear thoughts about the past in our minds. The stanza and the extended question close with the evocative sounds of the swans' wings that 'beat and whistle'.

The poem ends with a pair of rhyming couplets:

'All lost things lie under closing water

in that lake with the poor man's daughter.'

'Lost things' suggests memories that we can no longer recall, buried deep in our minds. The final line connects back to the initial focus of the poem, the girl who almost drowned. Alliteration of 'All lost things lie ... in that lake' serves to tie together the ideas of the memory and the drowning incident. 'Water' and 'daughter' are in fact the only rhyming words that appear in successive lines in the entire poem. In the first stanza, we could consider 'lake' and 'silk' (lines 3 and 4) as a half rhyme. Stanza two has 'earth' at the end of the opening line and 'breath' at the end of the fourth line, another half rhyme. The third stanza's first line ends with 'bleating' and its last line with 'drowning'. The fourth stanza does have two rhyming words, 'there' and 'air', one at the end of its first line and the other at the end of its last line, and each is the final word in a question.

The pattern of the stanzas is an interesting one, as the first and third stanzas have four lines each and the second and fourth six lines each, with the rhyming couplets standing out at the end of the poem. The lines vary in length, with the shortest one, 'Was I there?', drawing attention at the start of the fourth stanza.

In 'Cold Knap Lake', Gillian Clarke has created a fascinating poem that seems to focus on one particular dramatic event she witnessed in her childhood but develops into an expression of how our memories of the past are a part of us that may fade or play tricks on us with the passage of time.

Baby-sitting - Gillian Clarke

Gillian Clarke's poem centres on her experience of baby-sitting for a baby that is asleep but will wake up to find the baby-sitter, a stranger, and feel that it has been abandoned by the mother.

The first stanza opens with the baby-sitter sitting in a 'strange room', telling us that this must be the first time that the sitter has looked after that baby. She is waiting for 'the wrong baby' to wake up, and so we assume that the baby-sitter is a mother herself. Speaking in the first person, the poet tells us quite openly that she doesn't love the baby, and this emphasizes the fact that she is a stranger. She goes on to describe the baby in quite an endearing way; snuffling in its sleep, it is fair haired and not unattractive. The narrator, however, actually feels afraid that the baby will hate her when confronted with her on waking; 'she will shout / her hot midnight rage' conveys the idea of angry cries and screams. The description of the baby towards the end of the stanza, now that it is no longer sleeping peacefully, becomes less flattering. Her nose will run 'disgustingly', and the baby-sitter will find the smell of her breath unpleasant.

At the start of the second stanza, the baby-sitter imagines that the baby, on seeing her, will feel that she has been deserted by her mother: 'To her, I will represent absolute / Abandonment.' The baby's situation and feelings are then compared to other extremely lonely situations, such as a lover alone in bed, 'cold in lonely / Sheets.' The baby's loneliness will be worse than this, worse even than the sorrow of a woman visiting her husband in the terminal ward of a hospital. Sleep is depicted by the metaphor 'the monstrous land' from which the baby will awaken, crying. It will expect to be breastfed by the mother: 'stretching for milk-familiar comforting', but instead will be held by a stranger. The repetition in the final line of the phrase 'It will not come' serves to illustrate the fact that there is no bond between the baby-sitter and the baby; no comfort will be found.

The poem consists of two ten-line stanzas with lines of slightly varying length. There is no rhyming, and in fact many of the lines run straight into the following one, so that breaks occur frequently in the middle of the line, particularly in the first stanza.

Alliteration and assonance are used in the poet's description of the baby: 'She is sleeping a snuffly / roseate, bubbling sleep;' 'absolute / Abandonment' in the second stanza uses alliteration to emphasize the fact that the baby feels deserted by its mother. 'Beside the bleached bone' combines alliteration and metaphor to create a harrowing image of a person dying in hospital.

Gillian Clarke has painted a sensitive picture here, seeing the situation from the point of view of the baby, imagining exactly how it must feel on awakening to find a stranger instead of its mother. She also understands how the baby-sitter will react, actually feeling fear because the baby will not welcome her presence. It is a convincing picture, giving an unusual slant on what to us is probably a commonplace situation.

(Note: I have referred to the baby here as 'it' to try to avoid confusion between the baby-sitter and the baby; in the poem itself, the baby is referred to as 'she'.)

Before you were mine - Carol Ann Duffy

This is a delightful poem written by a daughter about how she imagines her mother's life to have been in her teenage years, ten years before her daughter was born.

The first line initially seems a little confusing as we read 'I'm ten years away from the corner you laugh on', but it becomes clear that the narrator (the daughter) is looking at a photograph of her mother with three of her friends. They 'shriek at the pavement' and seem to be sharing a great joke, young and carefree. As the daughter looks at her mother's dress blowing round her legs in the photo, she is reminded of Marilyn Monroe: the one-word sentence 'Marilyn' that closes the first stanza tells us how glamorous the future mother looked as a teenager.

As the second stanza begins, the narrator reminds us that all thoughts of her are still distant as the girl in the photo goes dancing 'in the ballroom with the thousand eyes': it sounds as though all these eyes were on her mother-to-be. She imagines how her mother must have danced, and can understand that if the right person walked her home, she would have been in a dream-world the following day: 'those fizzy, movie tomorrows' conjures up the magical feeling perfectly. The daughter also knows that her grandmother would have been waiting 'with a hiding' (a spanking) if her mother was late home, but that this would have been a small price to pay for such a night out.

In the third stanza, the daughter refers to the moment of her birth with the phrase 'my loud, possessive yell', conveying the idea that this was a pivotal, life-changing moment. She realizes that the ten years preceding her birth, as her mother approached adulthood, must have been the best ones. She can remember playing with an old pair of her mother's 'high-heeled red shoes, relics,' and pictures her mother walking in them, strangely referring to her 'ghost' as she approaches. Her imagination takes on the senses of both sight and smell as the picture becomes more vivid: 'till I see you, clear as scent'; she refers to her mother as 'sweetheart', and imagines that she would have had love bites on her neck.

The fourth and final stanza begins with an expressive Cha cha cha! in italics, and the daughter remembers how her mother taught her to dance on the way home from church. There is the sense of the forbidden here, echoing the idea of her mother going home late to a punishment perhaps. These dancing lessons seem to have taken place when the daughter was still a child, as she says 'Even then / I wanted the bold girl winking in Portobello'. The last two lines of the poem describe the mother's love as glamorous, and in the final one, the daughter captures the essence of her mother's teenage years where she used to 'sparkle and waltz and laugh', creating a picture of a vivacious, carefree young woman.

The poem is a four stanza one, each stanza being made up of five lines, with some variation in length of line. The first two stanzas focus purely on the life of the mother before the daughter was born, whilst the third stanza opens with a reference to the daughter's birth and then moves to the daughter's vision of her mother in her earlier life, thus providing a link with the previous stanzas. The fourth stanza begins with a recollection from the daughter's younger life with her mother, and then takes us back once again to the mother's days of dancing.

It's refreshing to read a poem in which a daughter enthuses over her mother, imagining how full of life and fun she must have been before she was born. Her admiration of her mother is conveyed in a delightfully direct way, and words such as 'shriek', 'sparkle' and 'fizzy' conjure up the lightheartedness of youth. I never tire of going back to read it again and to enjoy the way in which a daughter can see her mother as a young person, just like herself.

Education for Leisure - Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy's poem 'Education for Leisure' immediately shocks us with its opening line 'Today I'm going to kill something. Anything.' As we continue through the first stanza, we realize that the narrator is an attention-seeker, someone who wants to 'play God', someone who wants to relieve boredom in no uncertain terms.

The first thing to be killed is a fly, squashed against the window. Almost anyone could do this, so we are not taken aback by the action. The cat, however, hides away, more sensitive to an approaching threat. Then the goldfish goes down the toilet, or 'bog' to use Duffy's word here, and we begin to wonder how far this is going to go. The budgie starts to panic. In the final stanza it seems that perhaps the cat and the bird met the same fate as the fish, as 'there is nothing left to kill'. The narrator takes the bread-knife and goes out into the street; the ominous final phrase 'I touch your arm' strikes us all the more forcefully because it is the first time that the reader has been addressed directly, and therefore threatened personally, during the entire poem.

The title 'Education for Leisure' highlights the plight of those who, having gone through their schooling and been pressured to pass exams, are then unable to find a job; it is as though they have been educated just to have free time, and the result here is an extreme case of the effect of boredom, of being ignored. The narrator here is suffering from delusion, 'breathing out talent' on the window, believing himself to be a genius who could 'change the world'. Not having been given the opportunity to do so, he takes matters into his own hands by deciding to kill. This is the most powerful option open to him. We understand that he is on the dole from the sentence 'Once a fortnight I walk the two miles into town for signing on.' Referring to his signature as his 'autograph' reminds us that this is a person who craved fame but found only emptiness in his life. The sentence 'I see that it is good' following the flushing away of the goldfish is a biblical reference, echoing the narrator's idea to 'play God' in the first stanza. As we come to the final stanza, he phones a radio announcer in desperation and tries to convince him that he is a 'superstar'.

It is a little surprising that the poem is so tidily organized into five stanzas of four lines each, but this perhaps serves to emphasize the fact that the narrator's mind has in fact planned a certain course of action. The straightforward, matter-of-fact language is underlined by a number of very short and concise sentences such as 'I pull the chain.'

This is an interesting poem to compare with Simon Armitage's 'Hitcher'. The latter deals with a person who can no longer face the daily grind and resorts to violence when confronted with a hitchhiker who seems to have all the freedom he could wish for. Both poems portray extreme behavior by people who do not somehow fit into what society demands that they be: on the one hand, boredom is intolerable and inspires senseless killing; on the other, not being able to escape the rat race leads to a desperate outburst of anger and violence.

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.

The Man He Killed - Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy's poem 'The Man He Killed' focusses on the senselessness and futility of war, where a man has killed another quite simply because they were fighting on opposing sides in a war.

Written in the first person from the standpoint of one of the soldiers, the first stanza expresses the idea that the two men who fought would, had they in other circumstances met each other outside a pub, have enjoyed a few drinks ('right many a nipperkin') together. Yet it becomes clear in the second stanza that they in fact met as foot soldiers in a battle, and being confronted with each other, one had to die. The narrator received a bullet but survived, whereas his shot fatally injured the other man.

The writer falters at the end of the opening line of the third stanza as he tries to justifies his action. Repeating the word 'because', he states that he had to kill the other soldier as he was his enemy. The third line of this stanza features more repetition, this time of the word 'foe' (enemy); the use of phrases such as 'Just so' and 'of course' suggest that the narrator is trying to convince himself that his action was inevitable. The stanza, however, ends with the word 'although', telling us that the writer is not in fact at ease with the idea that he has killed his enemy. Using enjambment to link to the fourth stanza, the narrator reflects on the fact that the soldier he killed probably decided to join the army ('list is short for enlist) because he had no work and had sold his belongings. The narrator understands this, having been in a similar situation himself and having found himself with no alternative but to join the army. It was not a positive decision, but a last resort when there were no other options.

The final stanza reiterates the main theme of the poem, that war is a strange phenomenon because a soldier finds himself forced to kill a man that he would otherwise have bought a drink for or lent money to, had they met in times of peace. 'Half-a-crown' is the old British money, worth about twelve and a half pence in today's currency. In 1902 that would of course have had considerably more value than it does just over one hundred years later.

The poem is written in a conversational tone, with speech marks included, making us feel that the soldier is addressing us personally in an informal way, and pleading with us to understand his action in killing his enemy. The language is very straightforward and easy to comprehend with the exception of two or three words. There are five stanzas, each of four lines, all of which are inset to a certain degree other than the third in each stanza, which creates a regular pattern on the page. The rhyme scheme and rhythm are also regular and give the poem quite a fast pace.

It is easy to appreciate this poem and to identify with the soldier and his feelings, sympathizing with his predicament and sensing that he regrets having had to kill his enemy. We understand that individual soldiers do not necessarily nurture hatred for those they are fighting against, but see them as human beings in circumstances similar to their own, enlisting in order to earn money and suppport a family. But when facing each other at close range, the reality of war kicks in and one of them must kill the other. The narrator here knows that he could easily have been the one to die. The idea that war is nonsensical when seen at the level of ordinary human beings who are obliged to carry out orders is evident throughout the poem.

Here is the complete text of the poem:

'Had he and I but met

By some old ancient inn,

We should have sat us down to wet

Right many a nipperkin!

'But ranged as infantry,

And staring face to face,

I shot at him as he at me,

And killed him in his place.

'I shot him dead because -

Because he was my foe,

Just so: my foe of course he was;

That's clear enough; although

'He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,

Off-hand like – just as I -

Was out of work – had sold his traps -

No other reason why.

'Yes; quaint and curious war is!

You shoot a fellow down

You'd treat if met where any bar is,

Or help to half-a-crown.'

Thomas Hardy

1902

Hitcher

The first stanza of Simon Armitage's poem 'Hitcher' reveals that the narrator has been off work for a while and is under threat of losing his job. He states that he had been 'tired, under/the weather', not seriously ill. He doesn't answer the phone calls from work, so messages are left, and he describes the ansaphone as 'screaming' that he will be fired if he produces another sick note. This is someone who seems unable to face the routine of everyday life. He himself hitches a lift to the place where he has a hired car parked, but gives us no information as to the purpose of his journey or his destination.

The first line of stanza two abruptly introduces the hitcher: 'I picked him up in Leeds'; the hitcher is only ever refered to as 'him' or 'he'. We are told that he is travelling from east to west, 'following the sun', and the only possession he has with him is a toothbrush. He sleeps in the open, on 'the good earth'. He tells the narrator that the truth is 'blowin' in the wind', an obvious quote from a Bob Dylan song of the 1960s. The narrator's comment that the truth could perhaps be 'round the next bend' is an ominous precursor to what follows, but we may not realise this on first read.

The fact that stanza three describes the narrator's sudden violent attack on the hitcher reveals the envy that he felt when confronted by a person who appeared to have total freedom. 'I let him have it' is a blunt description of the physical attack during which the narrator hit the hitcher initially with his own head and then 'six times with the krooklok', directly in his face. Ruthlessness is all too apparent when he tells us that he carried on driving, 'didn't even swerve' during the attack.

Armitage uses enjambment to link the third stanza to the fourth, as the narrator describes how he pushed the hitcher out of the car whilst in third gear and watched him 'bouncing off the kerb'. The statement 'We were the same age, give or take a week' tells us that the narrator obviously made a direct comparison between himself and the hitcher. The hitcher 'said he liked the breeze/to run its fingers/through his hair': the personification brings to life this description that must have aroused such envy in the narrator at the hitcher's freedom that he began his frenzied attack. We are now into the fifth and final stanza, and the narrator's cold-heartedness is once again emphasised in his matter-of-fact tone as he listens to the car radio: 'It was twelve noon./The outlook for the day was moderate to fair.' This is a man who may have just killed someone.

The last two lines begin with another blunt, abrupt sentence: 'Stitch that.' The irony of the last line, 'you can walk from there', is all too clear, as the hitcher would have been in no state to walk having been brutally attacked and forced out of a moving vehicle.

The structure of the poem is in fact very balanced, consisting of five stanzas of five lines each. The lines vary in length but follow the same pattern in each stanza, beginning with a short one, increasing in length until the third line, and gradually decreasing in the fourth and fifth. The only rhymes in the poem are lines three and five in the first stanza ('fired' and 'hired'), and lines three and five in the final stanza ('fair' and 'there').

This is a first-person narrative reflecting different extremes in society: two men of the same age, one of whom has succeeded in escaping the rat-race, the other caught up in it but unable to face up to its demands and threatened with losing his job. Confronted by someone who has found the freedom he so covets, the narrator cannot bear listen to him or see him sitting beside him. Envy, pent-up anger and violence are unleashed. One man may be dead; the other is unrepentent, devoid of emotion.

Love after Love

Derek Walcott's four-stanza poem 'Love After Love' is essentially telling us how to love ourselves after the end of a relationship. In it he speaks directly to the reader, repeatedly using the words 'you', 'your' or 'yourself', and employing the imperative form of the verb.

Walcott recognises that, following a break-up, a love of oneself will not come immediately, but 'The time will come'. He emphasises the joy involved, as he says that it will be with 'elation' that you will 'greet yourself' at your door or as you look at yourself in the mirror. The first stanza ends with the idea that you will smile at yourself.

The second stanza opens with the image of considering yourself as a guest that you invite to sit down and eat. Walcott stresses that you will love 'again the stranger that was yourself', conveying the idea that you used to love yourself before becoming involved in a relationship. That was so long ago, however, that the person you were then seems like a stranger now. The short imperative sentences of line 8, 'Give wine. Give bread', link the process directly to the idea of Holy Communion, but in this case with yourself rather than with God. The instruction follows to 'Give back your heart to yourself', as though you are the one worthy of your love now that you have come to the end of a relationship with another. The second stanza ends with the repetition of the idea that you are a stranger to yourself after so many years of loving someone else.

Walcott uses enjambment to link one stanza to the next, and so the opening of the third stanza begins 'All your life', continuing the idea that you have always loved yourself. Yet you did not recognise this fact; you 'ignored' that love by loving someone else. Walcott uses the phrase 'who knows you by heart' in line 11 to show how well you know yourself, with the use of the word 'heart' underlining the feeling of love. Line 12, the final line of the third stanza, uses the imperative once again to tell you to 'Take down the love-letters from the bookshelf'. This idea leads into the fourth and final stanza that continues with 'The photographs, the desperate notes' which you should also take down. Walcott then suggests that you 'Peel' pictures of yourself from the mirror. Having gathered all of these, the poem ends with the idea that you sit down and 'Feast on your life'. Instead of looking at photographs and reading love letters that remind you of the break-up of your relationship, you look at your own life and appreciate the person that you are.

Walcott's poem is a mere fifteen lines long with stanzas and lines of varying length. The stanzas flow from one into the next, and the idea of loving yourself is developed throughout the poem with references to both religion and the welcoming of guests or feasting. Very brief sentences are interspersed with longer, flowing ones. In some cases the imperative verb on its own constitutes a sentence, such as 'Eat.' 'Sit.'

'Love After Love' introduces an original way of being positive following the end of a relationship. Rather than wallowing in self-pity or dwelling on the person who is no longer part of your life, it demonstrates a way of having a positive attitude to life. The person that you are has value, and you should recognise it and learn to love yourself.

What were they like?

An English poet who moved to New York as a young adult, Denise Levertov voices her opposition to the USA's role in the Vietnam War in her poem 'What Were They Like?' The poem is presented in a particularly unusual way, where the first stanza consists of a series of numbered questions asking about certain aspects of the Vietnamese people's way of life. The second stanza gives answers to each of these questions, and they are also numbered so that it is easy to tell which reply relates to which question.

The fact that the questions in the first stanza are all in the past tense immediately leads us to feel that this race of people has now died out. Four of the questions repeat the opening phrase 'Did they...?' The tone of the questions conveys a sense that these were people who were gentle and close to nature. The second question, for example, asks 'Did they hold ceremonies / to reverence the opening of buds?' This question gives the impression that worship was an important part of their lives, and that they respected nature, realising that the growth of new plants and flowers was a precious sign of life. The third question asks 'Were they inclined to quiet laughter?' This paints a picture of people who understood joy but experienced it in a peaceful way. The fourth question asks if they used the natural elements of bone, ivory, jade and silver for decoration, implying that they loved natural beauty. The two final questions concern poetry, 'speech and singing', wondering if they had an 'epic poem' and also if they perhaps felt that speaking and singing were essentially one and the same.

The very first question in stanza one asks if 'the people of Viet Nam / used lanterns of stone', stone again being a natural substance. As we begin to read the answers to the questions in stanza two, we soon sense a difference in tone as the first line tells us 'Sir, their light hearts turned to stone.' This is not of course a direct answer to the question, but underlines the ideas of the first stanza, where it is suggested that these people appreciated joy and 'quiet laughter'. 'Turned to stone', on the other hand, tells us that their joy was wiped out, and their hearts became heavy. The next line, still answering the first question but now more directly, begins 'It is not remembered...' This phrase, repeated in the reply to the fifth question, creates a feeling that much of the knowledge of the Vietnamese people has been lost. No-one knows whether 'stone lanterns illumined pleasant ways'.

The answer to question two contains a poignant contrast of ideas. The fact that it begins with the word 'perhaps' reinforces the feeling that we cannot be certain of the traditions of a race of people that has been wiped out by war. The act of coming together to 'delight in blossom' is immediately followed by the harsh statement 'but after the children were killed / there were no more buds)'. No children, no buds, no life, no growth; what was there for these people to give thanks for in worship?

The third and fourth questions have replies that imply destruction by fire during the war. The answer to question three is the briefest one, telling us that 'laughter is bitter to the burned mouth.' Bitter can of course have two meanings: either a bitter taste, and here of course there is a reference to the mouth, or a bitter feeling, which is particularly poignant here, as the quiet laughter has transformed into appalling suffering. The reply to the fourth question begins 'A dream ago, perhaps,' reiterating the idea of uncertainty. It continues 'Ornament is for joy. / All the bones were charred,' leaving us in no doubt that there was no place for lightheartedness in the wake of the destruction of war.

The reply to the fifth question is the most detailed one, and also the one that bears the closest resemblance to the traditional concept of poetic description. It echoes the phrase 'It is not remembered' of the first answer, going on to say that most of the people were peasants who spent their lives 'in rice and bamboo'. They were cultivators, not destroyers. What follows is a descriptive image of 'peaceful clouds reflected in paddies', paddies being waterlogged fields where the rice was grown. Just as uncertainty was previously expressed by 'perhaps', here we have 'maybe': 'maybe fathers told their sons old tales'. The next two lines, however, are in sharp contrast once again, as these images or 'mirrors' were destroyed by bombing. This peaceful agricultural way of life was brought to an abrupt end, when 'there was time only to scream.'

The word scream is also in contrast to 'an echo yet / of their speech' at the start of the reply to the sixth and final question. Levertov uses a simile for their speech 'which was like a song', and the idea of joy is portrayed again. Their singing is compared to 'the flight of moths in the moonlight', creating the impression of delicateness and transitoriness. The final line of the poem presents one more question: 'Who can say?' emphasizing once more the uncertainty of the facts that are known about the people of Viet Nam. The poem ends with a brief sentence, 'It is silent now.' This is not a silence akin to that of the 'quiet laughter' of the third question, however. It is the silence of complete destruction, of a people that no longer exist.

We come away from this poem with a sense that the people being focused on here were gentle, peaceful folk who led a simple lifestyle close to nature; they had a strong sense of joy and delighted in creation and growth. The brutality of the way they were destroyed during the Vietnam War is brought home to us by the contrast of their quiet ways and the harsh reality of the bombing that wiped them out.

Nothing's Changed

'Nothing's Changed' is the expression of Tatamkhulu Afrika's opposition to the system of apartheid in South Africa, under which black people were denied many of their basic rights, and were not allowed to mix freely with white people. Afrika was actually born in Egypt but went to live in South Africa as a young child. Here he returns to South Africa after the apartheid system had been abolished, but finds that black people still do not have equal rights.

The first of the seven stanzas takes the form of a single sentence that spans eight lines. The opening line of the second stanza tells us that the first stanza is a description of District Six, a run-down area of the city of Cape Town. The poet walks through stones, grasses, rubbish and weeds that he sees as 'amiable', or friendly. In three instances the verbs 'click', 'thrust' and 'crunch' are emphasised by their position at the end of a line.

In stanza two, the poet tells us that there is no sign to say which district this is, but he knows instinctively that it is District Six. His recognition of the place is conveyed through a list of parts of his body that know exactly where he is: 'the skin about my bones, / and the soft labouring of my lungs'; repetition of the pronoun 'my' reinforces his personal experience of this place. The final two lines of this stanza introduce the first sign of his intense emotion: 'the hot, white, inwards turning / anger of my eyes'.

The third stanza describes a 'new, up-market' restaurant that is for white people only. The opening word of the stanza, 'Brash', tells us immediately how showy this place is (and, ironically, 'brash' can sometimes mean white-faced). The alliteration in the phrase 'flaring like a flag' in the following line continues to convey the idea that this restaurant asserts itself even in its name. Amongst the weeds, pine trees (Port Jackson trees) are beginning to establish a more sophisticated look for the surrounding area. The restaurant offers 'haute cuisine' (high-class, elegant food) and the presence of a guard is necessary to ensure that only white people enter.

Stanza four is the mid-point of the poem and draws attention to itself since it consists of just two lines: 'No sign says it is: but we know where we belong'. Again, the poet does not need a sign to spell out what type of place this is. Using the pronoun 'we' shows that he identifies with the black people, even though he was not one of them by birth.

In the fifth stanza, the poet continues to describe the restaurant. He knows what he will see inside it, but presses his nose 'to the clear panes' to confirm his suspicions. Everything is superior: 'crushed ice white glass', a linen tablecloth, and a rose on each table.

The penultimate stanza sets up a sharp contrast whereby Afrika introduces 'a working-man's cafe' just a little way away from the restaurant. Here, bunny chows are served: half loaves of bread are scooped out, filled with curry, and this is then eaten with the hands by dipping in the scooped out bread. Nothing could be further from the images of the third and fifth stanzas, as the workers sit at plastic tables, wiping their hands on their clothes, 'spit a little on the floor'. The last line here, 'it's in the bone' tells us that these people behave like this instinctively, never having entered a place where that kind of behaviour would be frowned upon.

The final stanza returns us to the up-market inn, or restaurant, and the poet moves back from the window, feeling that he is back in his childhood days at the time of the apartheid system. He still feels the same anger against that system, and has a fierce impulse to smash the glass: 'Hands burn / for a stone, a bomb'. The reason is obvious from the poem's final line, reiterating the title, 'Nothing's changed.' The black people of this region are still treated as if they are inferior.

This is a strong, politically emotional poem in which Tatamkhulu Afrika, although not black himself, speaks out against the injustice of the system of government in South Africa. His use of sharp contrast between the eating places of the white people in a classy restaurant and the black people in a working-man's cafe makes his message strike home with a direct forcefulness, and we sense his anger running through the poem's seven stanzas.