Childhood has always been a wonderful theme in poetry, and an amazing one to write about, as it dives our emotions deeply to childhood memories whether good or painful. Therefore, I have chosen from our given anthology the following poems for my coursework; “Piano”, by D.H. Lawrence, “Hide and seek”, by Vernon Scannell, and “Once Upon a Time”, by Gabriel Okara, as each of them represents childhood memories in an extreme extraordinary way from the poet’s experience. Each one of these poets has different feelings and personal experience about childhood.
“Piano”; D.H. Lawrence shows us the emotional impact of music on the poet. Choosing “Piano” as a title is very applicable; D.H. Lawrence used it as a symbol to his childhood. In the beginning of the poem, the music re-awakes the sweet, cozy and warm atmosphere of the poet’s childhood memories and makes him travel to the past, “Taking me back down the vista of years”.
Also, as how professional D.H. Lawrence’s onomatopoeia effect on us “in the boom of the tingling strings”, as he remembers himself softly touching his mother poised feet, while she was singing, as he was sitting under the piano, as if he was touching the past with all his emotions, “Pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings”.
The second stanza shows the high impact of music on the poet, “The insidious mastery of the song”. “Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong”, in my opinion this phrase effect has a magical spell which pulls me back again to the sweet, happy past, to the place I firstly opened my eyes on, “To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside”, These word create a deep feeling of cozy home activities, and family gathering.
Moreover, there is a wonderful contrast between the warm atmospheres in the “Old Sunday evenings at home” with “winter outside”, and again the poet is showing the great impact of music by repeating “the tinkling piano our guide”, this phrase here shows how the piano’s tinkling effects on his childhood memories and how it gathers the family around the piano.
The words “hymns” and “Sunday” shows a religious atmosphere. In my point of view D.H. Lawrence painted a beautiful image for the happy family, childhood memories and the great relationship on the winter days melts the ice in the heart, with all its dilates in a hidden way. Also, the sense of belonging to the past draws his nostalgia.
In the third stanza, we can see a huge shifting to the present “so now” that allows us to see the purpose of the hidden metaphors in the poem. As someone is re-awakening him, he sees that all of this is nothing “So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamor”. Illustrating that nothing can bring him back, despite how hard the singer tries, he or she would never be able to bring him to the present.
Here we can see how unfortunate the present is, and how he presents the past as his real home and someone kidnapped him to the present. “: the glamour of childish days is upon me”, D.H. Lawrence shows the magical effect of the childhood days on him and how beautiful it is. “My manhood is cast down in the flood of remembrance”, here is the big waking up, and how the sound, pictures, feelings, and memories are rushing in his head. The great use of the word “flood”, shows how childhood memories rush in his head.
D.H. Lawrence ends the poem with a sad simile full of very heart touching words “I weep like a child for the past”. What I really enjoyed about this poem that it doesn’t only show the effect of childhood memories, but also D.H. Lawrence was trying to say that every second you lived is so precious, and how happy times are valuable. Also he spots the light to the small, amazing details in life. Vernon Scannell’s free verse poem “Hide and Seek”, introduce another idea about childhood. The metaphor in the title “Hide and seek” implies the pursuit of childhood.
As Vernon Scannell begins the poem with the energetic, lively voice of a child playing hide and seek, In other words, he did not make an introduction for the poem which makes the poem less boring. “Call loud”, we can listen to the enthusiasm of the child as he is playing with his friends, “I’m ready! Come and find me!”, Although, In the first lines we can see how he described the atmosphere, with the alliteration in “Sacks”, ”Salty”, ”Seaside” and “Shout”. Here the poet is almost making it real, by using the senses of hearing and smelling.
In lines 4:8, we can feel how strong the cautions are giving to him to win, “be careful”, “You mustn’t sneeze”. Furthermore, using “mustn’t” is a much tensed word which makes the command after it is unable to be rejected. Moreover, in line 8, the onomatopoeia is used “whispering, at the door”, we can perceive how he is very circumspect not to lose and for every sound around him.
In fact, short strong orders build tension as “don’t breathe. Don’t move. Stay dumb. Hide in your blindness”, so that he can be found at this point. But, the onomatopoeia in “Stumbles, mutters”, “Scuffle”, is making the scene more genuine and realistic, We can perceive his hesitation from coming out from his hiding place, and how is he thinking and looking at the future.
More specifically, in the personification and alliteration, like “Cold bites through your throat”, and again describing the atmosphere and how he is not comfortable. In addition, to this Vernon Scannell used the sense again to make it more authentic. Eventually, it is time to go out in an excitement “Here I am! Come and own up I have caught you!” we can hear and feel how happy he is. Also in lines 25, 26 a personification which shows insolation and loneliness, “The darkening garden watches”, “The bushes hold their breath; the sun is gone”. We can perceive how alone, and after coming out he is still alone in the dark.
In general, Vernon Scannell used personifications and alliterations to make the poem come to live, by using sense, which makes the poem more powerful and attractive. “Once Upon a Time”, by Gabriel Okara presents the childhood theme in another way, by criticizing the society we live nowadays through his free verse in a conversational poem from a father to his son. The title is very relevant, as the beginning of every narrative story, so it is a magnificent, catchy title, also very appropriate to the theme of childhood.
Furthermore, in the first stanza, Gabriel starts with three metaphors “laugh with their hearts and laugh with their eyes”, “laugh with their teeth”. Which show how people changed, Also using such words like “used to…” and “now” shows as well the gap between the father’s past and present life, As well as the repetition of “laugh”. The metaphor “ice-block-cold eyes” displays how people became passionless and emotionless nowadays.
In the second stanza there is a repetition of “shake hands”, “hearts” as the heart is a sign of an actual emotion and people became only pictures. Moreover, “their left hands search my empty pockets”, shows how people nowadays are befriended one another only for interests and mutual gain.
In the fourth stanza, the poets use of the effective simile “I have learned to wear many faces like dresses”, characterizes how people became artificial and fake and how they react to other people without feelings. In addition to the compound words “aficeface, streetface, hostface, cocklailface”, that shows how people are hypocrites always pretending. Another simile to show how people became fake, “conforming smiles like a fixed portrait smile”.
In the fifth stanza, the father is telling his son how modern life has made fake in his communication with people and how he learned this “I have learned, too, to laugh with only my teeth and shake hands without my heart”. Gabriel Okara described today’s life very deeply in a few words. “I have also learned to say, “Good bye”, when I mean “Good-riddance”. We can feel how people treat each other without their hearts, so this can be a more practical explanation for the first stanza and second stanza.
Eventually, we can understand why the father wants to change his life and feel his nostalgia to the past pure life “I want to be what I used to be when I was like you’. He doesn’t like the way he is living now he wants to relearn how to live naturally “for my laugh in the mirror shows only my teeth like a snake’s bare fangs”, this simile shows his big repulsion of his present life.
In the last stanza, he is trying to see himself in the eyes of his son and to learn from him how to be pure “show me, son, how to laugh; show me how I used to laugh and smile”. In his point of view, he can see that his son is his guide. In conclusion, I liked the way how Gabriel Okara used the figures of speech to describe the difference between the present and the past, and how people are treating each other in every smart way which made me feel every word.
From my outside reading I have chosen the best poems I read to write about in my coursework; “My Parents Kept Me from Children who were Rough”, by Stephen Spender, “Follower”, by Seamus Heaney and “My Heart leaps up when I behold”, by William Wordsworth.
Stephen Spender’s poem is describing a childhood memory in “My Parents Kept Me from Children who were rough”; the poem consists of three stanzas, through the first lines of the poem he starts by repeating the title “My Parents Kept Me from Children who were rough”.
The title shows how his parents over-protected him. By repeating the word “Kept” shows us the impact of being forced, weak and how he is unable to protest on his parents’ over-protection on him. In addition using words such as,” torn, rags” shows the misery and poverty of the children in the street.
We feel compassion as the child shows his fear of the bullies “Who threw words like stones”. Here the simile shows how hard was the words of boys on him. This shows that those boys are of a lower-class that has no manners.
His fear wasn’t only from their words and the way they are saying it, In addition, it was in their appearance and qualities by using similes as “muscles like iron”. Furthermore, the repetition of “feared”’ twice shows the harsh effect on him, and how he was unable to communicated with these boys as he came from a different lifestyle. Moreover, the poet associates the actions of those boys to wild animals in “tigers”, “dogs”, and “They threw mud”.
At the end of the poem we can see that the boys didn’t hate Stephen but hated the life he used to live in as he is from a higher privileged-class. Spender ends his poem by “pretending to smile”, to show that he has no problem to befriend those boys and to forgive them, “but they never smiled”.
I really enjoyed reading this poem, as it shows that over protection of children might be baneful. “My Heart leaps up when I behold”, by William Wordsworth, the poet described childhood in different way. Moreover, Wordsworth is showing that there is a connection between nature and happiness and how the impact of nature can change life positively.
The opening line shows us the great nostalgia of the poet to the past memories. “My Heart leaps up when I behold”. “A rainbow in the sky”, here we can see that the rainbow is the linking thing between his childhood memories and his life today. Furthermore, “So was it when my life began”, Here, Wordsworth describes his reaction, feeling joy to see the rainbow and to nature haven’t changed in spite the passing of time. This also shows that the life of people can change, but nature stays the same, “is it now I am a man”.
On the other hand, In the fifth and sixth lines there is a big deflection, as it talks about joy and happy days, and it starts to go negatively against the theme of the poem, ‘or let me die!”, as Wordsworth prefers to die than living in a monotonous life without nature. In addition, in the wonderful metaphor “The child is father of the man”, this is the wonder and inquisitiveness that each child has when experiencing the world.
At the end, William repeats the idea of being always with nature, “Bound each to each by natural piety”. In my opinion, this poem made me smile and feel happy by looking on every small natural thing around me. On the other hand, “Follower”, Seamus Heaney’s simple poem carried us back to his childhood memories with his father in a very visual and realistic way.
“Follower”, is composed of six stanzas, each stanza consists of four lines. In the first stanza the poet begins by describing the hard work done by his father on the farm. “worked with a horse-plough”, we can see that the son is talking about his father in the past tense, which gives us as readers a clue that things have changed since then. Furthermore, in the second line there is a visual, specific description of his father, “His shoulders globed like a full sail strung”, and an effective simile conveying the father’s power.
In the second stanza, the narrator or in other words the son is describing his father by saying “An expert”, and how he works professionally. “Fit the bright steel-pointed sock”. More simply, the son shows to us how the father can control his horse in a simple way “with a single pluck”, which shows how versed is the father.
In the third stanza, the poet sheds light on the team, man and horse, “the sweating team”, which shows the close relation between man and animal. Heaney usually in most of the poem uses words such as “angled the ground”, “mapping the furrow exactly”, to show the great skill of his father.
In addition, the fourth stanza shows a great difference as the narrator portrays himself “I stumbled”, by using “I”. In the third line of this stanza “on his back”, implies that the son is on his back and this shows the love and admiration for his father. In this stanza we can see how the son follows his father.
In the fifth stanza, we can see that the son wants to be like his father “I wanted to grow up and plough”. Each time in the poem the speaker describes the best and strongest terms of a father, but this time “broad”, He is more than a figure of a father.
In the final stanza, the poet is looping all of the professional qualities of the father the son wanted to have “I was a nuisance, yapping always”, in this part of the poem the confluence between “I”, and “was”, mean that his father is the follower which shows a great turn in the idea of the poem. In addition, how the father believes in him, “But today it is my father who keeps stumbling”.
