Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Poetry Writing Prompt

"Here" by Philip Larkin is a pastoral poem in which a man describes the different places he has traveled to from being a salesman. The character describes the places with a direct tone.
Throughout the poem Larkin’s mildly changes as he inserts a new place to describe. A huge cit, poor urban neighborhood and so forth the salesman is from the country were things are much different. He first talks about a large town with:” Cheap suits, red kitchen-ware, sharp shoes, iced lollies, electric mixers, toasters, washers, drier.” “It may seem as if he is a little jealous of the things the people of the city are able to purchase.
The author’s tone is another way of saying his diction or his attitude towards his audience. In the poem his attitude changes from jealousy (when he describes the large town) to graceful or happy that he only has to drop off a package to an urban town. “A cut-price crowd, urban yet simple dwelling, Where only Salesmen and relations come within a terminate and fishy-smelling.”
In the poem Philip Larkin uses an eight line stanza to complete his piece. In the stanzas Larkin uses imagery to draw attention more on his poem and to involve his audience. Third stanza 7th sentence he uses a simile to illustrate the wheat fields by saying: “Fast-shadowed wheat-fields, running high as hedges.”
All in all the poem would be said to be a narrative poem, a poem that tells a story or even a lyric poem, personal emotions of a single speaker. The character is unfolding the truth about the way he feels about the places that he visits while traveling. The poem ends with the character being lonely on a beach. “Here is unfenced existence: Facing the sun, untalkative out of reach.

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