All Questions
Tagged with wording-choice poetry
20
questions
1
vote
1
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250
views
Aspects of Kamala Das's Poem 'My Mother at Sixty-Six'
This poem 'My Mother at Sixty-Six' is in our curriculum and I have a few questions on this:
Why does the poet capitalise 'Young Trees'? Why not just leave it as 'young trees' as it is not a proper ...
- 113
13
votes
1
answer
3k
views
Why Pallas in "The Raven"?
In Poe's famous poem "The Raven", the eponymous bird, after tapping on the narrator's window, steps smartly inside and perches upon a bust of Pallas.
Why Pallas? As far as I know, this ...
- 74.1k
5
votes
0
answers
76
views
Why are the non-fellow-students not referred to as guns in Clint Smith's "The Gun"?
This is sort of the reverse of my previous question on Clint Smith's poem "The Gun". While it's blatant about referring to all of the kids as "guns", I find it interesting that the ...
- 9,864
23
votes
5
answers
4k
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Why are all the schoolchildren referred to as guns in Clint Smith's "The Gun"?
Clint Smith's poem "The Gun" describes a school shooting from the perspective of a child. However, the central character, as well as its fellow classmates, are all referred to as "guns&...
- 9,864
22
votes
6
answers
9k
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In Ozymandias, who is the "ye" in the line "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" meant to be addressing?
Percy Bysshe Shelley's Ozymandias is a well-known and oft-referenced English-language poem from the early 19th century, and purports to quote — presumably in translation from Egyptian hieroglyphs — a ...
- 345
3
votes
1
answer
93
views
Understanding the nature of the footsteps imagery in Henry Longfellow's "Footsteps of Angels"
I'm trying to understand the sense of the image of divine footsteps used in Henry Longfellow's religious poem "Footsteps of Angels":
With a slow and noiseless footstep
Comes that messenger ...
- 205
7
votes
1
answer
696
views
Why is snow compared to "ash" in the poem "Snowfall"?
"Snowfall", by Ravi Shankar, has this as its first verse:
Particulate as ash, new year's first snow falls
upon peaked roofs, car hoods, undulant hills,
in imitation of motion that moves the ...
- 9,864
1
vote
0
answers
24
views
Walter Malone's "The World is My Home"
Walter Malone's poem "The World is My Home" is, on the face of it, openly a plea for humanity to come together as one united brotherhood rather than engage in disputes and wars:
Travel to ...
- 74.1k
5
votes
1
answer
738
views
Why are the lotos-eaters "mild-eyed" and "melancholy"?
In Tennyson's famous poem "The Lotos-eaters", a group of mariners find themselves on an island inhabited by "Lotos-eaters", and themselves decide to stay after eating lotos has had ...
- 74.1k
3
votes
0
answers
75
views
Why these specific "things that fly" in "Kite-Flying"?
Rose Justice, the main character of Rose Under Fire, writes several poems that appear in various places in the book. This is the second verse of Kite-Flying:
Hope waits stubbornly,
watching the sky
...
- 9,864
3
votes
1
answer
88
views
Why is death a redeemer in Robinson Jeffers's "Hurt Hawks"?
The poem "Hurt Hawks" by Robinson Jeffers is about a red-tailed hawk whose wing is so badly hurt that he'll never be able to fly again. Two lines of this poem are as follows:
The curs of ...
- 74.1k
3
votes
1
answer
813
views
Why "in the midst of alarms" in William Cowper's poem "The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk"?
The second quatrain of William Cowper's poem "The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk" is:
O Solitude! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms,
...
- 74.1k
3
votes
0
answers
146
views
Is there any significance to the lemons and the port in Ko Un's "Asking the Way"?
"Asking the Way" is a short poem by Ko Un, addressing "You fools who ask what god is" and telling them to ask about life instead, illustrating the principle with examples about ...
- 74.1k
4
votes
1
answer
2k
views
What does "balks account" mean in Walt Whitman's "I Sing the Body Electric"?
Walt Whitman's poem "I Sing the Body Electric" is a sort of celebration of the human body. A phrase that recurs a few times is "balks account":
The love of the body of man or ...
- 74.1k
1
vote
1
answer
548
views
Why "a creeper climbs" in Our Casuarina Tree by Toru Dutt?
In the poem "Our Casuarina Tree" by Toru Dutt, why has she written 'a creeper climbs...'?
Instead, she might have written 'a climber climbs'! Does it imply anything?
