Rukhaya M.K

A Literary Companion

Page 8 of 20

Poetry Analysis: Theodore Roethke’s “The Waking”

December 17, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Theodore Roethke’s poetry is distinguished by its inherent rhythm and natural imagery. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book, The Waking, named after the prescribed poem. “The Waking” is a villanelle , a poem of five tercets and a final quatrain with two rhymes The title is a very eloquent one. It at once symbolizes enlightenment, illumination and self-discovery. One ponders on why the poet has chosen the leaf as the speaker of the poem. “The Waking” is essentially a poem about self-knowledge, through various mediums of learning as echoed in the different stanzas. Perhaps the poet opts for a leaf as the mouthpiece, as it a passive spectator to the phenomenon of life .Furthermore, it is universal for subsistence. Roethke has been hailed as one of those who showed reverence for “everything that lived.”

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

I learn by going where I have to go.

The beginning stanza takes the experience of life itself as a source of knowledge. We awaken to fall asleep. Here, Life is the waking and Death is the sleep. We all take birth in this world only to ultimately cross the threshold of death.…

Poetry Analysis: Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz”

December 17, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” expresses the speaker’s relationship with his father and his vivid remembrance of his rambunctious behavior. The poet’s attitude towards his alcoholic father is one that he accepts with all its nuances. The reckless father’s conduct though uninviting in general, is acceptable to the poet. He accepts it just as Death is inevitable.

The whiskey on your breath

Could make a small boy dizzy;

But I hung on like death:

Such waltzing was not easy.

The lines explore the spiritual and physical relationship between the father and son. The ‘whiskey’ smell could make a small boy dizzy. His father could be a source of embarrassment to him. Nevertheless, he accepts it with panache and maturity much beyond his years. ‘Waltz’ is a dance that involves couples going round and round. Therefore, it is symbolic of a relationship between two people involving a one-to-one correspondence. The rhythm of the steps points to the harmony of the bond. The phrase “round and round” implies the circle of life, that with repeated turns keeps them going together.

He romped or played about with his father till the pans slid from the kitchen shelf. The above action is emblematic of domestic disturbance and insecurity.…

Poetry Analysis: James Russell Lowell’s “Stanzas on Freedom”

December 17, 2014 / / 4 Comments

The poet James Russell Lowell in “Stanzas on Freedom”(1843) addresses Men in general rendering the issue of slavery a universal one. Lowell was an abolitionist throughout his life.’Ye’ is the plural of the pronoun of the second person in the nominative case. He makes a request to the collective consciousness of the people. They boast of being born to fathers brave and free. The poet poses a rhetorical question, where the answer is implied in the question itself: “Are ye truly free and brave?” The chain of slavery is not a physical one, therefore you do not perceive it. One can only experience it through the pain of a brother. If you do not experience the same, then you are the baser slave imprisoned in the chains of callousness and cowardice as you allow for slavery to exist.

Women! who shall one day bear
Sons to breathe New England air,
If ye hear, without blush,
Deeds to make the roused blood rush
Like red lava through your veins,
For your sisters now in chains—
Answer! are ye fit to be
Mother of the brave and free?
Women are also equally responsible in abolishing the vicious circle of slavery. They enable the circle of procreation, give birth to sons who breath the air of New England.…

Poetry Analysis: R.S. Thomas’ “Evans”

December 17, 2014 / / 1 Comment

The poem that begins in the interrogative is conversational in tone. Note that the interrogative stance adds to the fact that the details are factual, and not a story. Evans and his existence is described in terms of his kitchen, to pertain to the domestic simplicity of his existence. The kitchen is ‘gaunt’ and the flight is ‘bare’; it has nothing to conceal as in a sophisticated culture. The downward flight also signifies,R.S.Thomas the parson-poet coming down to earth, and accepting the bare facts of life. Everything is stark naked as reality is. The kettle’s functionality has deteriorated; its shrill whistle has reduced to a ‘whine’. The atmosphere is ‘cold dark’. “Cold’ because of the lack of warmth and love around him. “Dark’, owing to the ignorance that prevails. Words like ‘stark farm’ point out to the stark reality and abject poverty the poem seems to portray.

The poet begins the poem with “Evans?” implying that the person’s existence has to be reminded of. It comes across as a random topic in the midst of a conversation. “Rain’ that it at once symbolic of fertility and prosperity seems blood-like. Evans stands conspicuously like the one tree ‘Weather-tortured’. Nature that once served as an abode to the simple peasant has worked against him.…

Poetry Analysis: Alice Walker’s “Poem at Thirty-Nine”

December 17, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Thirty-nine is a significant time in the life of a woman. She reaches her prime and is on the verge of entering forty. It is a difficult phase for her if she is a single mother. Alice Walker had met Melvyn Roseman Leventhal, a Jewish civil rights lawyer in 1965, and had her daughter Rebecca in 1967. They divorced in 1976.The speaker at this juncture has probably reached a stage, where she longs for the presence of a father in her daughter’s life. She thus becomes nostalgic for her own father.

She begins the poem “Poem at Thirty -Nine” by stating how nostalgia set in with thoughts of her Father coming to her in flashback. She wished that he was not so overcome with fatigue when she was born. Her father ” earned only $300 a year from sharecropping and dairy farming” worked hard for a living and could not devote much time to her. According to her, he was “wonderful at math but a terrible farmer”. He taught her to deposit slips and write checks, and how life is lived. She recalls his methods of educating her as he would have explained: “This is the form.” For the speaker, the bits of paper were more to her than just papers…they were for her a better way of life as compared to the life of her father which she had seen.…

Poetry Analysis: Kamala Das’ “My Grandmother’s House”

December 17, 2014 / / 2 Comments

Kamala Das recalls her ancestral house that was filled with the all-pervading presence of her grandmother And this is why her grandmother’s house is singular: Kamala Das received ‘love’ there. When the poetess speaks of ‘love’ in particular she ascertains that it is unconditional and selfless. With the death of the Grandmother, the house ceased being inhabited. It now became an isolated and remote entity, echoed by the phrase ‘far away.’ The poetess asserts that with the death of her grandmother silence began to sink in the house. Kamala Das, at that juncture, was too small to read books, but emotional enough to comprehend the true feeling of love.

With the death of the Grandmother, her life that was hitherto filled only with emotions becomes numb. Her veins thus become cold rather than warm. It is as cold as the moon, the moon being an emblem of love. The worms on the books seem like snakes at that moment, in comparison to the size of the little girl; and in keeping with the eeriness of the situation. The poetess also implies that the deserted house is like a desert with reptiles crawling over. The poetess now longs to ‘peer’ at a house that was once her own.…

Poetry Analysis: Kamala Das’ “The Sunshine Cat”

December 12, 2014 / / 1 Comment

In the poem “The Sunshine Cat”, the poetess rants over the disillusionment in her yearning for love. Those who took advantage of her emotional instability are termed ‘men’ in general ;it inevitably includes her husband too. He turned out to be a mere objective observer without emotional attachment. His being selfish, he did not exhibit the slightest display of love. And, his being cowardly, he did not dare to give in sexually to her, for it would mark the relegation of his ego: his perspective of masculinity..He was a relentless onlooker to the extent of being insensitive for he watched her encounters with other men like a carnival affair. This is why Kamala Das employs the word ‘band.’

She ‘clinged’ on to this band of ‘cynics.’ The word “cling” is very significant, as one clings out of desperation, as in clinging onto dear life. A cynic is a person who believes that only selfishness motivates human actions. Her life revolved around these egocentric people. Nevertheless, she “burrows’ herself in the chest of these men. Note the word “burrow” is generally used with reference to mongooses or rats that dig holes to hide themselves for security. For the poetess, this was a temporary refuge to make herself secure as long as it lasted.…

Poetry Analysis: Kamala Das’ “The Dance of the Eunuchs”

December 12, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Kamala Suraiya Das also known as Madhavikutty, is India’s ‘Poet Laureate’. The “Dance of the Eunuchs” is included in the collection Summer in Calcutta(1965). The poem is an eloquent expression of the barrenness of Kamala Das’s love-life and emblematic of the spiritual aridity of her being. The poetess utilizes the symbolism of the eunuchs who are the very emblem of sterility. The dance of the eunuchs far from being an aesthetic extravaganza is rather a spectacle that is looked down upon.

The poetess begins by exclaiming that: “It was hot, so hot, before the eunuchs came.”

Climate change is not a matter of concern for them, as they are always subjected to cold air and frigid responses. The anklets just jingle and jingle without any rhythm to it.They are indeed a spectacle with their ‘flashing eyes’ beneath the fiery gulmohar. The gulmohar is a beautiful tree that is juxtaposed against something deemed unpleasant.

To dance, wide skirts going round and round, cymbals

Richly clashing, and anklets jingling, jingling

They were green tattoos on their face. They have to carve tattoos on their face, as the face of the eunuchs will be the only place that will be explored, that too, by disinterested eyes.…

Poetry Analysis: Kamala Das’ “The Freaks”

December 12, 2014 / / 0 Comments

The word ‘freak’ has the following meanings:

  1. A thing or occurrence that is markedly unusual or irregular
  2. An abnormally formed organism, especially a person or animal regarded as a curiosity or monstrosity.
  3. A sudden capricious turn of mind; a whim:

Here , the first stands for the sexual act in the poem that is unnatural, simply for the reason that it is not natural (not arising out of love).

The second meaning can be attributed to the object of the act, the poetess herself- an eccentric.

The third implication is responsible for the poem itself as a whole, a sudden whim that results in the poet’s inspiration.

The man in question is described in terms of his unattractive attributes: his sun-burnt cheek, his dark mouth, the uneven teeth that gleam (implying that the person is most probably dark) etc. The poetess begins the poem with ”He talks” as he is the supreme authority as in “And God said…” The act of love also has patriarchy reigning supreme. His mouth is a dark cavern of hidden egoistic secrets. The cavern is also a passage for the poetess to reach her love’s heart, that she fails to achieve. The teeth hanging from the roof of his mouth appear as uneven as stalactites.The word ‘stalactites’ denotes lack of warmth.…

Poetry Analysis: Kamala Das’ “An Introduction”

December 12, 2014 / / 8 Comments

An Introduction” is Kamala Das’s most famous poem in the confessional mode. Writing to her, always served as a sort of spiritual therapy: ”If I had been a loved person, I wouldn’t have become a writer. I would have been a happy human being.”

Kamala Das begins by self-assertion: I am what I am. The poetess claims that she is not interested in politics, but claims to know the names of all in power beginning from Nehru. She seems to state that these are involuntarily ingrained in her. By challenging us that she can repeat these as easily as days of the week, or the names of months she echoes that they these politicians were caught in a repetitive cycle of time, irrespective of any individuality. They did not define time; rather time defined them.

Subsequently, she comes down to her roots. She declares that by default she is an Indian. Other considerations follow this factor. She says that she is ‘born in’ Malabar; she does not say that she belongs to Malabar. She is far from regional prejudices. She first defines herself in terms of her nationality, and second by her colour.

I am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar,

And she is very proud to exclaim that she is ‘very brown’.…

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