Rukhaya M.K

A Literary Companion

Author: rukhaya (page 7 of 20)

Poetry Analysis: Phyllis McCormack’s Crabbit Old Woman

February 5, 2015 / / 0 Comments

 

“Crabbit Old Woman”, is also entitled  ”Look Closer Look Closer Nurse, Kate, Open Your Eyes or What Do You See?” The authorship of the prescribed poem is uncertain.  It has been pointed out by critics that the author is Phyllis McCormack. The tone of the poem is persuasive; the speaker of the poem is an infirm woman in the geriatric ward of a Dundee nursing home. The poem was  first published in the  poetry anthology Elders (Reality Press, 1973) edited by Chris Searle. Searle is uncertain about the authorship of the piece, but voices it as the genuine writing of an old woman. “Crabbit Old Woman” had later featured in the Christmas edition of “Beacon House News” .It was a magazine of the Northern Ireland Mental Health Association.

This was the Lady’s gift to generations to come. The poem has been oft quoted in works meant for caring for the elderly and underlines the need to enable them to lead a life of self-esteem. It comes across as a poniter to humane treatment where man is caught in the rat race of survival of the fittest.

As per  the Daily Mail ( 12 March 1998), “Phyllis McCormack’s son claims that his mother wrote it while working at the Sunnyside Hospital in Montrose in the 1960s, where she submitted it anonymously to a small magazine intended just for Sunnyside with the title “Look Closer Nurse.”

The term ‘crabbit’ is Scottish slang for ‘grumpy’ or ‘miserable’.…

Poetry Analysis: Margaret Atwood’s “The City Planners”

February 5, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian author, poet, critic, essayist, feminist and social campaigner. Best known as a novelist, she is also an award-winning poetess.”The City-Planners” is an indictment on the superficiality of progress, and the attribution of incorrigible rationality to the same.

The word “cruising” implies to move along, in an unhurried or unconcerned fashion. As the poet moves about in a residential area, she is offended by the “sanities” of the area. The word ‘sanities’ may possess a double meaning here. Firstly, it may allude to the unnatural ‘sanitariness’ of the place. Secondly, it may denote the saneness of minds, or soundness that render them sophisticated, uniform and therefore boring. The “dry August sunlight” alludes to the province from which the speaker hails: Canada. The houses in rows appear too pedantic to be real. The trees have the appearance of being planted to render the scene picture-perfect. The levelness of surface further provokes the poetess as it appears to be a rebuke to the dent in their car door. There is no shouting there, no shatter of glass. No instinctive action takes place here: everything is after-thought and preplanned. There are no shouts here, no loud wants as people are economically well-off and complacent.…

Poetry Analysis: Allen Curnow’s “House and Land”

February 5, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Allen Curnow’s “House and Land” published in 1941, is one his most frequently anthologized poems. Allen Curnow’s “House and Land” investigates the sentiment of alienation experienced by the settlers even though they have spent two generations in the adopted land. Curnow emphasizes the theme of displacement. Though the sellers displaced from England to New Zealand, they failed to recognize New Zealand as their homeland. Though they live in the adopted land, they have not yet adapted to the circumstances. Miss Wilson, the daughter of one of the settlers finds herself filled with a void. The historian asks the cowman:

Wasn’t this the site, asked the historian, Of the original homestead?

The phrase” under the bluegums” underlines the feeling of depression. The dog seems to be brooding and wasting itself as it languishes around. It just lazily strolls from privy to fowl house-to privy. It senses the innate stagnation, the state of decay. He senses that it is going to rain. Rain is a symbol of fertility and redemption. The historian learns that the lady lives a luxurious life, her expansive building being equipped with all the basic amenities of life. Nevertheless, their long-tern affair has not brought in it any genuine emotion, they feel detached as though they do not belong or fit into the place.…

Poetry Analysis: Allen Curnow’s “Continuum”

February 5, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Allen Curnow’s  works concerning “the New Zealand Landscape and the sense of isolation experienced by one who lives in an island colony are perhaps his most moving and most deeply pertinent works regarding the New Zealand condition. His poetry specially concerns landscape/isolation.”

The poem “Continuum” is a poem on the continuity of poetic inspiration. The poetic source of stimulation of great poets since ages has been the landscape. The moon has been a persistent metaphor for poetic inspiration in celebrated poems like Samuel Coleridge’s “Dejection: An Ode.” The poet’s quality of being a satirist is prominent here. He first asserts that the moon rolls over the roof, and falls back. This is to imply that his poetic capabilities are sinking. Subsequently, he goes on to substantiate that the moon does neither of these things, he is talking about himself. When poets do generally stumble in poetic output or due to lack of inspiration, they tend to blame the external circumstances. However, Here Allen Curnow asserts that the poet himself is to be blamed; for, Poetic inspiration comes from within and not from outside.

Being sleepless is not an excuse for writing a poem. Sleeplessness does not necessarily allow one to ruminate over a subject, or subjective thoughts.…

Poetry Analysis: Robert Herrick’s “To the Virgins to Make Much of Time”

December 20, 2014 / / 1 Comment

Robert Herrick’s poem, “To the Virgins to make much of Time” extols the ‘carpe diem’ motif, the rose being a powerful emblem of the brevity of life. ’ Carpe diem’ is a Latin phrase meaning ‘seize the day.’ It was a common theme in Cavalier poetry. The rose also symbolizes the beauty of youth and its ephemeral nature. The poem was penned in 1648 and published in a collection of verse entitled Hesperides. The theme of the poem is similar to Ben Jonson’s poem “Song: To Celia” where the speaker stresses on the transient nature of life, but advises to seek union in holy matrimony and not in adulterous association. The latter combined with the ‘carpe diem’ motif was utilized in Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress.” The combination of Christianity and the carpe diem motif is singular to Robert Herrick, and has not been employed in conventional poetry. The influence emerges from Herrick’s’ position as vicar of Dean Prior, as appointed by King Charles I. The background of the poem is the political turbulence that led to Britain’s Civil War. Therefore it emphasized the relishing of the present while it lasted.

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a flying:
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.…

Poetry Analysis: Rudyard Kipling’s “If”

December 20, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Rudyard Kipling’s “If” is one of the most celebrated poems in the corpus of English Literature. The poem was published in 1910 in Kipling’s collection of children’s stories, Rewards and Fairies,along with “Brother Square Toes,” Washington’s inspiring tenure during the French Revolution.The poem aims at delivering moral instruction to the little minds and also functions as a source of motivation. It soon turned into an anthem to impart instruction and instill inspiration. The emphasis on the second person “you’ indicates the one-to-one correspondence between the speaker and listener.

The first lesson the poet communicates is to be positive in face of differences of opinion and disapproval. The easiest resort for a person is to blame his failures on others: the basic tendency of men to pacify the supreme ego . One should learn to take responsibility for his actions. Self-confidence and Self-respect are the best assets one can own. Nevertheless, self-confidence must not verge on over-confidence and must make room for others’ views and beliefs. One must rely on the self, while others regard his capabilities with suspicion. If one patiently and persistently waits for the fruits of one’s perseverance, nothing can stop him. A wise man once said: “A man is not poor if he does not possess a penny.…

Poetry Analysis: Seamus Heaney’s “Storm on an Island”

December 20, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Seamus Heaney’s “Storm on an Island” is included in Death of a Naturalist (1991).The word ‘island’ foregrounds the concept of isolation. The modern way of existence, is an egotistical one. It is set in an era of competition, and focuses on survival instinct. People like to live as isolated entities divorced from each other, and lead a complacent life free from the responsibilities of brotherhood. The idea of the joint family is no longer cherished, and people prefer to confine themselves to nuclear families. The lesser the number, the more the advantages, and less significant the disadvantages. They are free from all hassles of ties and are self-satisfied. However, little do they comprehend that a “storm” can occur on this island too.

The poem begins with the line: “We are prepared: we build our houses squat.”That is, people presume they are prepared for the inevitable. They build their houses ‘squat’.’ Squat’ implies to cower or crouch, and therefore assumes a protective posture. The house is designed to function this way. The walls are set with solid rock, the house is roofed in ‘slate’ and the stage is set for the ideal life. The ‘wizened’ earth has never troubled them. Since the earth exists before the speaker, it is seen as aged (echoing once again the concept of living with the elders of the joint family).Beneath the age of the earth, the speaker fails to discern the vast experience that it encompasses.…

Poetry Analysis: Boey Kim Cheng’s “The Planners”

December 20, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Boey Kim Cheng is a Singapore-born Australian poet Thoroughly disillusioned with Singapore’s exponential progress and hurried economic evolution, he believed that these were attained at the cost of spiritual stagnation and cultural retardation. His poem “The Planners” is very similar in design and theme to Margaret Atwood’s “The City-Planners”.

The planners of this so-called pseudo-modern civilization build their plan with such dexterity, that the minutest of demands are met. Their level of analysis scans all permutations of possibilities. The buildings are lined religiously alongside the roads. These roads are arranged to meet at convenient points, defying all logic. The different spaces are ‘gridded’ and linked mathematically in confinements, whereas creativity is infinite. The construction progresses and nothing interferes with it Even nature is not spared in the process, and therefore the sea draws back in fear and the skies surrender in abandon.

The flaws are effortlessly erased. Past mistakes are knocked of without any value, though one learns the most from one’s mistakes. The whole process is likened to a dental procedure. The blocks are removed with dental dexterity. All the gaps are neatly filled in with cement ‘like gleaming gold.” The country appears to adorn perfect rows of shining teeth, flaunting a flamboyant smile.…

Poetry Analysis: Moniza Alvi’s “An Unknown Girl”

December 20, 2014 / / 2 Comments

Moniza Alvi was born in Pakistan .Her father was Pakistani and mother English. She left Pakistan when she was a baby for England. The poet is thus caught between two worlds and her poems exemplify her quest for her cultural identity. The prescribed poem appears to be set in India. Pakistan was a part of India before the partition, therefore the setting may be a symbolic thirst for her motherland. The title of the poem is “The Unknown Girl”, though it may refer to the girl in the poem, it may be a pointer to the poetess herself as she is unknown to the roots, the unconscious culture and heritage ingrained in her.

The poetess states how her neon studded jewelry glared at her in the evening bazaar. A woman in India is closely associated with elaborate jewelry and embellishment. This forms a part of her individuality, and her femininity. The act of hennaing is a form of body decoration with the dye of a plant. With the act of Hennaing, she seems to impart to the speaker significant feminine aspects of the culture. The hennaing comes out of a nozzle, slowly descending on her as her tradition was. The semi-solid henna is cool and a good conditioner, and therefore the girl feels her hands being ‘iced’.…

Poetry Analysis: Kamala Das’ “The Fancy-Dress Show”

December 20, 2014 / / 1 Comment

Kamala Das is first and foremost, a confessional poet. In the rendering of her poems,she has divorced herself completely from social stigma and societal inhibitions. Her “The Fancy-Dress show” is an indictment of the society that is driven by brazenness and hypocrisy. She has utilized the metaphor of the fancy dress most aptly. The fancy dress show is always a competition, as is any concept in the modern world. People are always, what they are not. Inherent in the metaphor, is the feature of parading the same. They wear the guise primarily for outward profit, and not for inner satisfaction. Iago, the archetypal villain echoes the same when he exclaims in Othello: “I am not what I am.”

In the contemporary times, the poem rings a bell, for people are noticed more for their outward appearances and ostentation of public life. Inherent goodness is no longer the criteria for the identity of an individual. The hallmark of a priest remains his cassock. It is as if he is not a priest without this prescribed norm. And sadly ,the priests of the Modern day have deteriorated in principles to such an extent that their vocation is acknowledged only from the cassock. Gone are the days, when they were judged based on spiritual learning and instilling values.…

Older posts Newer posts

My Facebook Page

Recent Comments

Archives

© 2024 Rukhaya M.K

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑