Good morning/afternoon Mrs Morgan and fellow class members. Good poetry makes you think and feel about issues and ideas raised by the poet. Judith Beveridge explores the beauty of nature and man’s relationship to it. Judith Beveridge shows the cruelty of humans towards animals and nature in her poems. The first poem I have chosen to talk about is “The Shark”. This poem is about a bunch of fishermen on a boat, who catch a shark and later discover that the shark has eaten a young boy. The Shark” shows how powerful nature can be by showing how easy it can kill and what an efficient predator it is. The people in this poem are quite angry with the shark once they realise what the shark has done. The people hack into the shark to get the child’s remains once they discover what the giant beast has done. The poet Judith Beveridge has used some interesting techniques like the use of imagery. Like when she says “Grennan jammed open the great jaws and we saw how the upper jaw hung from the skull”.
Judith Beveridge paints an image in your head very well with her words, but the images are mainly violent because there is a lot of violent imagery used in “The Shark” like when she wrote “we flinched at the stench of blood that dripped on the fish house floor”. Judith Beveridge also uses language techniques, such as in the first line of the poem it says “We heard the creaking clutch of the crank”, which is alliteration. She also uses another language technique “Gulls circled like ghouls”, which is the use of similes.
The poem “The Shark” is structured in 3 line stanza’s which makes it pack more of a punch. The other poem I have chosen to talk about is “Orb Spider”. This poem is about the poet observing nature and comparing it to humans. The poet watches the orb spider spin its web and the orb spider teaches the human world lessons through out the poem. In the “Orb Spider” Judith Beveridge conveys that nature is perfect and humans have a lot to learn from it. The poem is really about perfection and purpose and even the smallest creatures can teach us a lesson.
Judith Beveridge has used some good techniques in this poem like imagery when she wrote “thin as a pressed flower in the bleaching light” and “She hung in the shadows as the sun burnt low on the horizon mirrored by the round garden bed. Also in the poem “Orb Spider” Judith Beveridge uses language techniques, such as “a few small insects clicked like opening seed-pods”, which is a simile. In the poem the poet watches the spider work and feels happy and sees the true beauty of the web and the spider. By Anthony Christie
