Month: May 2015

OOTB is a poem based on 9/11. The poem is written from the perspective of a person in the world trade centre at the time of attack in first and second person.

In the poem one of the obvious language devices is repetition and rhyming and in the first stanza the protagonist says how you can see him through a camera shot and that the viewer will see “that a white cotton shirt is twirling,turning.” this quote uses present continuous verbs and these things the protagonist mentions are describing his surroundings. In the second stanza repetition of the word waving is used quite frequently and he describes him self as small in the clouds but still waving this shows hen hasn’t given up hope and still believes he will be rescued but then says “does anyone see a soul worth saving” this is a rhetorical question where the protagonist wonders if anyone will be saved since

How have structural choices made by the poet enhance our understanding of the themes explored by the poem Hawk Roosting?

The hawk is revelling in its own perfection as it rehearses how it wants to kill its prey the second and third stanza show how the hawk believes it is the perfect being and how nature itself is helping it hunt as he inspects his hunting area the third stanza shows the Hawks arrogance when he says “it took the whole of creation to produce my foot, my each feather: now I hold creation in my foot”.The final two stanza’s are about the Hawks lifestyle and how he feels nothing about his victims and the fact he wouldn’t change anything this show the howl has no sentiment about its victims and that it rules the world .The human race and the hawk have many similarities like the fact we think we are the master race of nature and that we are prey to nothing and mankind will kill each other off for the sake of dominance over land and religion the hawk kills because it believes it is its soul purpose and the world is its playground it does not care about anything that isn’t a hawk so he kills it for the sake of it because he believes that this is natures will .

The poems layout starts with the hawk sleeping and imagining how it will and eat its next victims with the second stanza the hawk describes its surroundings and acts as if that is nature helping him to hunt his victims showing that nature takes the hawk’s side of battle in the food chain just like civilians get caught in violent acts by military and Terrorists with no way of defending themselves just like the Hawk’s prey they are both caught in an conflict they don’t have any involvement with or want to fight for.