Poetry

In "The Sea," James Reeves compares the sea to a dog through an extended metaphor, in which the choppy sea is like a hungry dog, the roaring sea is like a howling dog, and the calm sea is like a...

Sydney Sipho Sepamla's poem "Da Same, Da Same" reflects the poet's background as a citizen under South Africa's system of racial apartheid. In the poem, Sepamla argues that all people are basically...

"The Pedlar's Caravan" by William Brighty Rands is a poem that vividly depicts the speaker's fascination with the nomadic life of a pedlar, who is possibly a Romany Gypsy. The speaker admires the...

The tone of M. Mtshali's "An Abandoned Bundle" is initially dismal and helpless, marked by vivid, haunting imagery of squalor and violence. However, the tone shifts towards the end, becoming filled...

The theme of the poem "Letter From a Contract Worker" is the expression of love, which the speaker achieves eloquently within the poem but cannot do in a letter since he cannot write and his beloved...

Purushottama Lal uses imagery in his poem "Life" to describe life as a flower with five petals: love, faith, hope, something unseen, and something terrible. Love is depicted as a bee lusting after a...

The AI-generated response is correct in that all the elements that it lists and describes are common features of modern poetry. It is important to keep in mind though that the term modern poetry...

The main theme of J. Reeves' poem "The Sea" is the power and unpredictability of nature, embodied by the sea. The sea's playful and menacing characteristics are metaphorically depicted as a "hungry...

"An Abandoned Bundle" by Mbuyiseni Oswald Mtshali uses powerful imagery to depict the harsh realities of apartheid-era South Africa. The poem describes a newborn baby abandoned in a garbage heap,...

The central idea of Gabriel Okara's poem "The Mystic Drum" is the damaging effect of colonialism on the spiritual pulse of African life, as represented by the eponymous drum.

The characteristics of modern poetry are themes of isolation and valuing intelligence over emotion. The modernist poets, such as T. S. Eliot, tended to favor intellect over emotion and valued themes...

Eleanor Farjeon's poem "Cat!" humorously depicts the personality and behavior of a cat through vivid imagery and playful language. It captures the cat's independence, grace, and occasional aloofness,...

Metrical romances are non-rhyming prose poems, popular during the Renaissance, that tell stories often involving knights and heroes, typically ending happily. They emphasize courtly love and chivalry...

"Get Up and Bar the Door" humorously depicts the stubbornness of a wife and husband. The wife is hardworking and busy, while the husband is simply giving her orders. When a wind blows the door open,...

"Joy and Pleasure" by William Henry Davies contrasts joy and pleasure, valuing joy more highly. Joy is depicted as precious, modest, and sincere, while pleasure is common, superficial, and fleeting....

Eunice de Souza's "Bequest" explores themes of patriarchy, female identity, individualism, and the marginalization of women. The poem critiques societal expectations and the power dynamics between...

The speaker's response to the boy in lines 1-4 of "Beg a Rose" is callous and insensitive. Despite his polite request for help, she ignores him and instead puts money into a parking meter. This...

In Eunice de Souza's "Advice to Women," the poem advises women to maintain emotional independence in relationships. It suggests observing a cat's behavior as a model for self-reliance and detachment,...

Lyric and epic poetry share a focus on storytelling, but differ in scope and perspective. Lyric poetry, often centered around emotions and love, emphasizes the individual and deals with specific,...

"White Stucco Dreaming" by Samuel Wagan Watson reflects his childhood as an Indigenous youth in the 1970s, involving harmless pranks within his community. The poem uses free verse and enjambment to...

Johnson Agard's poem "The Clown's Wife" employs various poetic devices, including imagery and metaphor, to convey its themes. The rhyme scheme is irregular, reflecting the chaotic life of a clown....

The poem “The Cockroach” by Kevin Halligan can be interpreted both literally and figuratively. Literally, it describes a cockroach’s erratic movements, symbolizing confusion. Figuratively, the...

Gauri Deshpande explores female friendship and solidarity in "The Female of the Species" by highlighting unspoken sympathy and shared experiences among women. Women understand each other's struggles...

The poem "No!" by Thomas Hood expresses the speaker's strong dislike for the month of November. He views November as a dark, dreary time that deprives him of enjoyable activities and the beauty of...

"An Old Woman" by Arun Kolatkar depicts an encounter with an impoverished elderly woman who clings to a tourist, seeking alms. The poem critiques societal neglect of the elderly and marginalized,...

The main theme of the poem "The Ruined City" is the transient nature of a city's glory. The poem reflects on the decay of a once-great civilization, emphasizing the loss of wealth, power, and...

The meaning of "style" in poetry refers to all the choices that are made to create the poem's meaning. Style can include technical choices, such as using short or long lines, varying or omitting...

A similarity between "I Hear America Singing" by Walt Whitman and "I, Too" by Langston Hughes is that both address American identity, and a difference between them is that Hughes's poem includes the...

Oodgeroo Noonuccal's works prominently feature poetic devices such as imagery, symbolism, and repetition. She uses vivid imagery to bring Indigenous Australian experiences to life, symbolism to...

"The Wife's Lament" is an Anglo-Saxon elegy. Anglo-Saxon poetry features caesurae, or line breaks, in the center of each line, dividing the line into halves. A kenning is a figure of speech, a form...

The stanza form of "An Abandoned Bundle" by Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali is continuous form. The poem consists of five stanzas with varying line lengths and no consistent rhyme scheme. The first stanza...

"Oranges and Lemons" by Sujata Bhatt recounts the speaker's personal experiences and reflections during a visit to the Anne Frank House. The poem explores how the presence of others, specifically a...

"Shining Things" by Elizabeth Gould is a poem from a child's perspective, listing various shiny objects from nature and man-made items. The child finds comfort in these objects and appreciates God's...

The theme of Jayanta Mahapatra's poem "The Whorehouse in a Calcutta Street" is the humanization of sex workers. Mahapatra challenges societal views that dehumanize prostitutes, depicting them as...

Agostinho Neto's poem "Western Civilization" satirically contrasts the title's suggestion of cultural advancement with harsh depictions of poverty and exploitation. The poem illustrates the grim...

An example of three poems with a similar theme by different poets are e. e. cummings's "[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]," Anne Bradstreet's "To My Dear and Loving Husband," and Sylvia...

A lyric poem expresses personal feeling about a private event. It contrasts with the occasional poem, which is written to commemorate a large public event, and the epic poem, a long form of poetry...

The main theme of "The Discovery" is innocence on the verge of being lost. The Taino man, seeing Columbus's ships, is unaware of the impending changes. The mood shifts from contentment to surprise...

"Then and Now" by Oodgeroo Noonuccal laments the destruction of Aboriginal culture and land due to European colonization. The poem contrasts the speaker's happy, natural childhood with the...

A critical appreciation of Eunice De Souza's poem "Bequest" should include how the author uses literary devices and structure to accomplish her goals. Most notable in this particular poem are the...

Richard Ntiru's poem "The Pauper" uses harsh imagery, rhetoric aimed at God, and contrasts between rich and poor to shine a light on the plight of the destitute poor in Uganda.

Lines 5-8 in "Beg a Rose" suggest that the speaker is wealthy and sophisticated. The speaker visits a "rose-shop" to choose "thin pinks for dinner-table décor," indicating a level of refinement and...

The poem "Festival" by Kenneth Wee contrasts the traditional Chinese culture of the poet's forebears with modern English-language culture. He starts out by pointing out that during the festival the...

In poetry, a line, also known as a stich, is the unit of language into which a poem is divided. This string of words before a break may not necessarily complete a sentence, and its arrangement is...

Elizabethan poetry is characterized by romantic ideals, melodrama, and a blend of tragedy and comedy. It often features intense emotions, imagination, and a structured rhyming meter like the sonnet,...

The poem "The Witch of Glentow" by James Stoddard Moore describes an old woman who mysteriously settles by the riverfront in Glentow, arousing suspicion among villagers. After being denied a meal,...

"The British (serves 60 million)" by Benjamin Zephaniah is an ode to the cultural diversity and historical evolution of the British people. The poet uses a recipe metaphor to describe the various...

The main theme of Johnson Agard's poem "Clown's Wife" is appearance versus reality. The poem reveals the clown's dual life: he appears joyful and successful on stage, but is actually depressed at...

An Elizabethan sonnet, also known as an English or Shakespearean sonnet, is a 14-line poem written in iambic pentameter with an ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme. It consists of three quatrains followed...

In "Speak Up," Faiz Ahmed Faiz encourages his audience to use their voice and personal freedoms to empower themselves, reflecting the spirit of the Indian independence movement. The poem consists of...