A Poison Tree is the first poem of the anthology and it's a great one to start with. It's about conflict, but not obvious conflict, like war - instead, its key focus is on how internal conflict can ruin a person. I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I water’d it in fears, Night and morning with my tears; And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple bright; And my foe beheld it shine, And he knew that it was mine, And into my garden stole When the night had veil’d the pole: In the morning glad I see My foe outstretch’d beneath the tree. -- William Blake What's It All About? Ultimately, this is a short and simple poem about anger. More specifically, it's a poem about repressing anger - bottling it up - and the consequences of doing this. What's the Point of View? The narrator seems to be a wise person who has learned the hard way what bottling up anger can do to a person. They speak of how they didn't communicate their anger and frustration, and how it then grew until it was out of control. Think About the Structure The poem is written in quatrains - four-line stanzas. Each stanza is made up of two rhyming couplets. What could this represent?
The poem's opening stanza also has a clear shift in tone - the writer opens the poem by comparing the two different ways in which they deal with a situation, dependant on who they are talking to. There is also a sense of reflection/symmetry at the end of the poem, where we come back to the poet's feelings towards their enemy. The poem is written in troachaic tetrameter - like the Witches in Macbeth - why? Perhaps the sing-song nature of the rhythm juxtaposes the severe nature of the consequences of the writer's actions. Also, what about the ending? 'My foe outstretched beneath the tree' - what does this represent? Is he dead? Is it a metaphor? Why end it here? And the Language Too The language of the poem is very simple - it's a very clear and easy-to-read poem. Many of the words only have one syllable - increasing the level of ease with which one reads it. Could this be to send a message that bottling up anger is something that we all do - regardless of age or ability? The opening lines of the poem all begin with 'I'. This reinforces the idea that the poem is a first-person perspective, and increases the intensity - this is clearly something the writer feels passionately about. As we know, it didn't end well for them... There is a repetition of 'and', which again builds intensity. Perhaps the writer wants us to see how bottling something up can 'snowball' into something worse... Imagine Other Methods Quite clearly, this poem is an extended metaphor. The writer compares his anger to a tree, one which he nourishes: 'I water'd it with fears'. Think about:
Give a Personal Response When discussing poetry, it's always important to give your opinion - evaluate the poem. You can read more on evaluation here. Using evaluative language will help you to explore the poet's intentions as opposed to just looking at the words. This is what will get you into the upper bands. When comparing poems, I like to pick out the poem I think is more effective at putting its message across, and explaining why. I think this shows that I am able to discriminate between two poems and their messages. Linked Poems
0 Comments
Ciaran Carson was born in Belfast, Ireland, and wrote Belfast Confetti in response to the bombings committed by both the Irish Republican Army (the IRA) and British Nationalists during The Troubles (a time of conflict between Britain and Ireland running through history up to 1996, when the Peace Agreement was triggered).
The poem focuses on what happens when a bomb goes off close to home - and how it affects your ability to communicate. Belfast Confetti Suddenly as the riot squad moved in, it was raining exclamation marks, Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys. A fount of broken type. And the explosion. Itself - an askerisk on the map. This hyphenated line, a burst of rapid fire... I was trying to complete a sentence in my head but it kept stuttering, All the alleyways and side streets blocked with stops and colons. I know this labyrinth so well - Balaclava, Raglan, Inkerman, Odessa Street - Why can’t I escape? Every move is punctuated. Crimea Street. Dead end again. A Saracen, Kremlin-2 mesh. Makrolon face-shields. Walkie- talkies. What is My name? Where am I coming from? Where am I going? A fusillade of question- marks. What's it all about? As stated above, it is an account of a bomb attack in Belfast - most likely, the Shankill Road bombing of 1993: What's the point of view? We can assume that the first-person narrative is through the eyes of somebody on the road, during the time of the bombing. This poem is clearly focused on the effect the bomb has on an 'every man'; it doesn't seem to be the voice of someone who is directly involved in the attack. Think about the structure This is an interesting poem. Consider the opening line Suddenly as the riot squad moved in it was raining exclamation marks By opening the poem with the word "suddenly", we get a sense of the urgency of the situation. We can almost assume that before this, the narrator was just going about his normal life - we come in almost halfway through a sentence. Notice also the lack of punctuation; normally, we would see a comma after "suddenly" and "in", but we don't - which adds to the lack of chaos. Also consider this response from BBC Bitesize: The poem's form is immediately striking. Instead of neat, compact stanzas, the lines are over-long and the stanzas stretched. On closer inspection, you can see there are two stanzas, the first with five lines, the second with four. Each line, however, spills over so there are additional lines of one or two words. By presenting the poem like this, Carson is expressing the confusion caused by the riot and bomb. For example, with the phrase "And/the explosion/Itself" (lines 3-5), we even end up reading backwards as our eyes have to move from right to left across and down the page... However, through the confusion of the form and the language, we can see a narrative structure (an organised story). A demonstration has got out of hand and riot police have moved in to control it. The rioters start throwing things and there's an explosion (it is possible the nuts and bolts come from the explosion itself – time may also be confused in the poet's head). The poet runs for safety, trying to make sense of what is happening, but cannot escape. The place he knows so well becomes a trap and he runs into a check-point where he is held up and questioned by the police. And the language too This is an interesting poem in that the language we would expect to see is instead replaced by hard, cold, punctuation, perhaps suggesting that the blast was so sudden and so unexpected that it has knocked out the narrator's ability to use words. Swap "exclamation marks" for "screams" and "stops and colons" with police and debris. Carson could describe the scene if he wanted to, but he doesn't. This is very clearly a poem that focuses on the psychological confusion of being caught in a bomb - the blast takes away your ability to focus, reflect, take in information. Ironically, Carson is stuck with punctuation marks, with no words to punctuate. The language itself is harsh and unpoetic, almost primitive - take the line Nuts, bolts, nails, car-keys All simple household objects, yet when put together can produce tragedy. The language is cold, simple and forceful. Note also the car keys - a touch of humanity amongst the industrial mess. An interesting point from Bitesize focuses on the use of street names: Carson also lists the street names in lines 11-13. These work both on a literal level (they describe where he lives and how well he knows these streets) but also the metaphoric level. The streets are named after generals and battles and places from the Crimea War, a war the British fought in Victorian times against the Russians. He therefore likens the riot to a battle in a bigger war. Imagine other methods Alliteration is a big part of this poem. The poem is unstable, and lacks any real form due to its confusing nature and the state of the narrator, but what stands out is the use of the fricative consonant /f/ juxtaposed by the plosives /b/ and /k/. Most lines have these sounds - the gentle calm followed by the sudden 'crack' or 'pop' of the bomb. The use of questions at the end forces the reader to think - is the narrator asking himself these questions, or is he being interrogated? It isn't really clear, and again adds to the confusion. Consider also the juxtaposition of the weapons used by each side - the police have "makrolon face-shields" and "saracens" and "walkie-talkies", whereas the bombers have "nuts, bolts, nails and car-keys". There is an inherent divide here; the battle itself is already unequal. Poems for comparison
You can access the presentation for this lesson here:
You can learn more about The Troubles here:
|
An OverviewWe are studying the Conflict cluster from the Edexcel anthology. This exam is closed-book, so you will need to familiarise yourself with each poem's form, structure and language, in addition to how each poem is related, before the exam. ArchivesCategories
All
|