Hello everyone, welcome to my blog. The blog is in a form of task given by Prof. Dilip Barad. Here are ten short modern poems with its modern metaphor, symbols and imagery.
The Embankment
- T.E.Hulme
Once, in finesse of fiddles found I ecstasy,
flash of gold heels on the hard pavement.
Now see I
That warmth’s the very stuff of poesy.
Oh, God, make small
The old star-eaten blanket of the sky,
That I may fold it round me and in comfort lie
The title suggests itself that it is about homelessness. In the modern era because of two world wars there was poverty which flourished through industrialism.
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Darkness
Darkness.
I stop to watch a star shine in the boghole –
A star no longer, but a silver ribbon of light.
I look at it, and pass on
Darkness refers to the total absence of light. But in the present of light the poet refers to the Dark sides of humans. Evilness of society. As it was the time where people had faced too much negativity. Cruelty of humans by two World wars. And the modernist poet aimed to speak reality about everyday life. The working class people had to struggle in the modern age.
Star is a symbol of shine or brightness or we can say hope. But for the poet it has become just a silver ribbon which is shining in the sky. What the poet wanted to say is that there is no hope for a bright future for humans in the modern age. The last line is very pessimistic. He looks at the star and passes on, it means he has lost the hope for a bright future. There is darkness everywhere in life or we can say society.
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Image - Edward Storer
Forsaken lovers,
Burning to a chaste white moon,
Upon strange pyres of loneliness and drought.
Here 'Forsaken lovers' can be considered as Victorian ideas, which are burning in the modern age. We can also find isolation and brokenness. Burning of all evil things.
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In a station of the Metro" - Ezra Pound
The apparition of these faces in the
Crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough
From the title we get the first image of the station. Station where we can find a lot of people. But all are in a hurry to reach their destination. We can also connect it with the current time(Mumbai railways). Or we can say in the crowd one can feel loneliness.
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The Pool - Hilda Doolittle
Are you alive?
I touch you
You quiver trembling like a sea-fish
I cover you with my net
What are you- banded one?
It can be any pool. But here we have sea fish in this poem, so this pool can be a swimming pool. 'Are you alive?' this line is for people. The people of the modern era, who have forgotten to live their lives naturally in the era of machines.
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Insouciance
– Richard Aldington
In and out of the dreary trenches,
Trudging cheerily under the stars,
I make for myself little poems
Delicate as a flock of doves.
They fly away like white-winged doves.
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Morning at the Window
T. S. Eliot - 1888-1965
They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaid
Sprouting despondently at area gates.
The brown waves of fog toss up to me
Twisted faces from the bottom of the street,
And tear from a passer-by with muddy skirts
An aimless smile that hovers in the air
And vanishes along the level of the roofs
This poem shows the idea of daily activities or routines. There are metaphors like aimless smiles, twisted faces which show the undesired life. Also we can say it shows the poverty in England.
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The Red wheelbarrow
William carlos William
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
The modern age is known as the age of mechanism. Here we can find some metaphors like wheelBarrow, rainwater and white chickens, all are connected with agriculture and craftsmanship. So with these metaphors the poet tries to convey his idea of the way back to agriculture.
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Anecdote of the jar
Wallace Stevens
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in the air.
It took dominion everywhere.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee
Here the first image we find is an image of Jar. The poet tries to look at nature with the symbol of Jar. And wants to convey the people to looking back to nature as it was the age of fast growing industrialism.
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I
E.E.Cummings
“A leaf falls with loneliness”
Very short poem but has a very deep meaning. Leaf is a metaphor of people. Fall means death. The poet talks about isolation and loneliness. And go through this loneliness people met to death.
1 Comments
Well written
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