The Walled Garden and An Age free essay sample

The Walled Garden and An AgeBy contrast to OCallaghans novella, Polleys poetry collection, Jackself in the third person broaches emotionally or politically sensitive issues delving into language, style and voice. The poems for this essay are The Walled Garden (p. 27) and An Age (p. 32). Although Polley wants readers to take his poetry at face value, the meaning can be obscure. In the former, Polley seemingly assumes the reader knows the Wall Brown butterfly is a climate change victim (Barkham, The Guardian, 24th December 2014). The only similarities in these two poems are simple language, sophisticated imagery and concepts.The Whispering Gardens gentler less abrupt rhythm, rythmically slower cadence and pace are evident in its opening line:listen to those hollyhocksthose lupins?Phonetically, the vowels are voiced sounds and the consonants are voiceless, for example /h/, /t/, /p/, and /s/, or voiced sonorants such as /l/, /p/. Save for /ck/ in hocks, the sonorants (sonorous consonants) /l/ or /p/, and vowels use breath, to create a soft, silent sound, not hard consonantal end of the scale with strong, guttural sounds. The onomatopoeic those bolsters the visual imagery of bees buzzing in and around lupins and hollyhock. Wrens opening statement listen to those hollyhocks those lupins? How can one listen ¨to them? What is one listening to?Wren says Ive watched the beesStealing in and outwith their furry microphonesEnvisage, hollyhocks (silent, hissing, long /s/) and lupins (buzzing long /z/), alive with bees buzzing, darting, busily collecting pollen with their furry microphones (buzzing long /z/ ), metaphorically inferring bees buzzing wings and thoraces when pollinating. It helps to know the botanical, natural history references and ecological implications to appreciate this poems depth. Wren, tells Jackself of the reprimand for interfering with the bees boxes:Ive put my ear to the boxwhere they take the noiseonly to be warned †¦all the timeUnexpectedly, Wren breaks off and exclaims excitedly:look!he says scrambling to his feetin the crookof Jackselfs elbowa Wall Brown butterflyWhy Wrens ex citement? It is only a butterfly, after all.An Age (p. 32), when read aloud, has a rhythmic drum beat, redolent of defining its metre and groove, combining gutturals, voiced and voiceless sounds with back or front consonants and vowels. Rhythm is only one of [Polleys] poetic devices (p. 90, Lodge). In the following stanza, the repetitions create rhythm and structural meaning:†¦ he stands for an agenot for a dark age.not for an ice age or an iron age,Canny use of such techniques, strategically used punctuation, and command of non-punctuation reinforces Polleys message: clear, deep and explicit agonising in the last stanza. Polleys choices add firmness to language and meaning. Spacing elegantly emphasises language and accentuates monosyllabic words in the last stanzas opening lines:he stands for an age?Then take the line:not for an ice age or an iron age.Or forces space for a cunningly imposed pause for breath – a natural substitution for a comma. Moreover, opening the poem with the simile of Jackself, staying in today, like a tool in a toolbox, hints at the poems dour, doomful humour in its repetition of age:not for a dark age. not for an ice age or an iron age,Preceded by the metonymy, he stands for an age, one adduces he represents an era of people sympathetic to bees enjoying their habitat in a pesticide-free ecosystem: but for apollen age, when beesbrowsed the workshopsof wildflowers for powderIneffably, the passage looks to the future, hoping mankind reverses environmental harm. Ultimately, the reader must form their own conclusions about the poems meaning. The emotionally charged closing stanza objects to the bees plight evinced by Jackself, who stands for an age. It concludes poignantly, if with gently barbed allusions, to the beess former glory of their pollen age when they browsed the workshops of wildflowers for powder. The nuances of he stands for an age is ambiguous; is Jackself standing for an interminably long time, or an era worried by the environmental impact on bees? Its adept artfulness and harmonious arrangement of fitting multi-faceted concepts and parts in playful, literary style.My wri ting (952)Contentious as it is to analyse the metaphor voice, blogger and writer, Pawlik-Kienlen (2009) cautions: your voice cant be learned. It has to be freed; Goldberg (p. 23, 1986, 2005), advises to open and trust in our own voice and process. Ultimately, if the process is good, the end will be good. Like Polley, writing is my vehicle for self-expression, focusing on relationships, environment, engineering, construction, and transport.Is that – Your Car? (Appendix 2), ponders the harm of Rolls Royces gas-guzzling lubricated pollutants †¦ facilitating with alacrity, Planet Earths early demise Where did I find that powerful line? Leonard Cohen, ( ) said, as do I:I dont know, and if I did, Id go there more often,Passing a squashed car dump inspired me to assign newly unearthed, graphically rich language to my observation. Was it influenced by childhood memories of gleeful laughter driving past abandoned, rusted, decomposed, cars? If so, why wait years to express itself? It could be yes, no or maybe. But that is to tease and play with my audience. Frankly, I have no idea.Life Beyond The Wall, (Appendix 3), flash fiction, potentially goth, the narrator a man with little sight, attempt[s] to see whatever there was to see as far as the eye, that is [his] eye, could see. He scarcely sees the wall. Is it near or far – who knows? – is akin to his perception of time long blur, linked by .. . a hybrid of blurs seasonal ground scrunched under foot making way for the sweet aroma of wild roses. Snippets of world class songs a [l]ong time ago distract from present and future non-events, hint at times hidden ghosts. Assiduously, the narrators references to the wall symbolises deep dark enigmata of history and sinister overtones indicated newly found freedom, sordid, seamy stories of – death and life. Solidified defeatism is apparent in twisting and warping the truth deviously and dishonestly distorting it beyond recognition, and repetitions of no comment. Doom and gloom buried in the closing paragraphs ulterior motives .. . disdainfully dismiss[ed], and walls holes arent pretty patterns.In the genre of memoire, starts with strong guttural phonomes of /k/, /g/, /d/, and /t/, commands attention – It was bitter. A thick blanket of crisp, clean, white snow covered the hard icy ground. We stood there. Shivering. Freezing. Visual language says everything and nothing, draws the reader in gradually revealing the funeral of a revered matriarch. The narrator, a second generation immigrant, shares trumped up political charges of the 19th Century, Cable Street Riots, Spanish Civil War, barbaric brutality of World War II and racisms impact on everyday work and family life.My stories rarely draw on experience. Gareths Last Stand, (2009, Appendix 5) is an exception. Its title and compelling opening sentence: I feel honoured and privileged to have played a part in Gareths last stand. My fear of writing a deeply personal narrative resolved by merging with another, took a leap of faith and trust in the process [of the workshop] †¦ essential for group work (Stern, 2009) to depict it in detail, Goldberg (p. xv, 2006).My innate ability to create a sense of openness belies my requirement for privacy. Other people, their needs and intrusions alienate me. In blogging on Katie Fords poem Fire (2014), Hazelwood ; Sipple (2015) discuss readers infringements into writer privacy which I experienced for an autobiographical piece (Appendix 3). It is hard to dismiss those crossing the line, wanting the fine details of [my] life. My breakthrough came in a seminar when I realised the only details I owe anyone I leave on the page. †¦ to write without fear. And leave it all on the page. (ibid). Vices that inhabit me and inhibit my voice, are the same old tired tricks of language (Alvarez, p. 27, 2005): poor paragraphing, long, convoluted sentences, multiple clauses, surfeit of commas, tautologies. duplicated words and phrases. Thus the readers challenge is structural sense-making to reach the rhyme and elicit my meaning. Burning through first thoughts, to the place where energy is writing what your mind actually sees and feels, not what it thinks (Goldberg, p.16, 1986, 2005), is not to persuade myself that my writing conveys deep and meaningful perceptions. Nor is it to say that first ideas precludes refining and re-writing content. The only resolution to these writing crises is to execute Goldbergs metaphor, Samurai, (pp. 262-3, 1986, 2005) or go on a word diet minus long rambling sentences using the passive voice and obscure words (Young, citing Flesch, p. 13, 2002). This, and powerful synonym databases, extricate me from the quagmire of the language ruts restricted vocabulary that limits my writings potency.A highly practiced, silent observer of my environment forms the raw material of my writing. Distilling the logic of my choice of one word for another is a necessary evil. To find that place with answers to such vexed questions entails digging into the depths of my soul – a journey that tightens my grip on something at which I excel, self-analysis. The more I do it the better I am at finding ways to know myself – an important resource succesful writers require. For, as King (2006) writes, why spend time on inconsequentials when there is only one life so what you spend your time on had better be important (p. ).