What is the theme of Judith Wright's poem "Request to a Year"?
In order for you to determine the theme, you have to take a look at what the poem is trying to say to you. First, what is this poem about?
If the year is meditating a suitable gift,
I should like it to be the attitude
of my great- great- grandmother,
legendary devotee of the arts,
The writer of the poem wishes she had the attitude of her great-great-grandmother, an attitude she will discuss in the poem.
who having eight children
and little opportunity for painting pictures,
sat one day on a high rock
beside a river in Switzerland
Grandma had a lot of kids and not much time for practicing her artistic skills. One day she is sitting on a big rock next to a river in Switzerland.
and from a difficult distance viewed
her second son, balanced on a small ice flow,drift down the current toward a waterfall
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her second son, balanced on a small ice flow,drift down the current toward a waterfall
that struck rock bottom eighty feet below,
From far away she sees on of her boys on a big chunk of ice floating down the river. At the end of the river is a nasty waterfall and the boy will be killed should he go over it.
while her second daughter, impeded,
no doubt, by the petticoats of the day,
stretched out a last-hope alpenstock
(which luckily later caught him on his way).
One of her daughters, with a little trouble because of her heavy dress, is trying to hold out a pole to her brother so he can grab it (which he does, saving his life.)
Nothing, it was evident, could be done;
And with the artist's isolating eye
My great-great-grandmother hastily sketched the scene.
The sketch survives to prove the story by.
The mother could do nothing to help, and could only watch. She choose to sketch the scene.
Year, if you have no Mother's day present planned,
Reach back and bring me the firmness of her hand.
The author once again wishes for "time" to give her the gift of her great-great-grandmother's "firm hand."
So when looking for the theme you have to ask yourself, "what is the author trying to say?" It might have something to do with keeping a firm head under pressure (the grandmother does not panic or scream at the sight of her child in danger), or about how an artist must be detached from his/her subject (she keeps on sketching even though the outcome of what she is watching is very important to her.) It could be about the importance of art, or a statement of fate (when something is going to happen it is going to happen, so why freak out about it.) There are other themes in there, too, just waiting for you to discover, so have at it!
Analyze the literary devices, structure, and title significance in Judith Wright's "Request To A Year".
"Request to a Year" is structured as five quatrains (four-lined stanzas) followed by an ending rhyming couplet. Stanzas 3–5 use a B–D rhyme scheme in which the last word in the second and fourth lines rhyme, such as "day" and "way" in stanza 4. Wright also uses punctuation to structure her poem and provide pauses. The first four stanzas tell the story in one long sentence that finishes with a period at the end of stanza 4. The first line of stanza 5, "Nothing, it was evident, could be done;" is separated from what follows with a semi-colon: the clause is a connector between the two parts of the poem. In the second part, starting with the second line of stanza 5, the speaker shows the great-great-grandmother's response, ending the stanza with a period. Finally, the couplet is the third part, a self-contained unit in which the speaker asks for the ancestor's extreme focus in pursuing her art. The speaker is impressed that instead of panicking that her son would die, the great-great grandmother drew the scene with a firm hand.
This is a narrative poem, one that tells a story, and Wright builds suspense by using the literary device of enjambment, which is when a poet breaks an idea between two lines (or stanzas) so that the reader must go past the first line to complete the thought. An example is:
and from a difficult distance viewed
her second son, balanced on a small ice flow
The first line leaves us hanging on the verb viewed so that we need to read on to find out what was seen.
Wright also uses alliteration, as in "difficult distance" and "second son" in the lines above. Imagery is another important literary device: this is description using any of the five senses. Wright wants us to visualize the dramatic scene, and does so by painting a picture, such as the description of the son:
drift[ing]down the current toward a waterfall
that struck rock bottom eighty feet below
At the same time, Wright uses the contrast of the speaker's detached tone with the drama of the actual life and death scene unfolding.
Finally, Wright uses both personification and apostrophe (direct address of an object) when, in the final couplet, she addresses the "Year" as if it is a person and makes a request. The first five stanzas also employ apostrophe.
The title, which refers to the speaker making the wish for her great-great grandmother's artistic detachment on Mother's Day, speaks to how important this request is to her: if she can have one gift the entire year, it is to put art ahead of everything.