The silence silences mean ' the silence of the photograph silences the poet'. She experiences the great loss of her mother. Death of her mother silenced her and leave's her speechless. This refers to the crticial appreaciation of the poem.
The poetess expresses her grief by composing this poem where she talks about her mother laughing which might symbolize her reminiscing the past. She looks back at her childhood days with nostalgia and recollects her innocent joys. Both wry with the laboured ease of loss.
The poet feels emotional because the photograph is of her mother's childhood. It had been captured by her mother's uncle when she along with her cousins had gone to the beach to have fun. The photograph brings tears to her eyes because now her mother is no more in this world. This thought evokes pangs in her heart.
Washed their terribly transient feet' Transient means something which is temporary or short-lived. Here, when the author says terribly transient feet, she refers to the ever changing imprints of the feet left on the sea sand. The sea never appears to change but the human life is transient.
what does the poet compare her laughter to and why? She refers to this laughter as having the laboured ease of loss. Laboured ease of loss refers to that ease which comes with bearing one's pain for so long that one has gotten used to carrying around that heavy burden.
The cardboard refers to the old photo frame that holds the picture of the poet's mother.
Answer: The cardboard shows the poet of her mother's lost childhood. It represented the photograph of her mother with her two cousins in the beach. Her mother remembered the past days and became nostalgic and happy for a moment but remembered that the photograph also shows the temporary lives of humans.
Answer: The phrase smiling through their hair refers to the fact that these women had long hair half covering their faces and their smiles were so bright that it seemed like sunshine penetrating through that cover. In other words, The breeze had swept the hair of the three girls at the beach onto their faces.
Shows what the irony is because the silence in itself is the one thing which falls silent as the end nears. The photograph is amusingly a dysphoric one. The condition of mother being happy in the photo and the joy of the artist to see her mother in a joyful or happy state both are associated with depressed side.
'laboured' conveys that both the poet and her mother were struggling, trying to cope with their loss. Yet, both realised that the loss was final and they had to accept it, therefore 'ease'. 'laboured ease of loss' is an oxymoron, a poetic device where two opposites are used together.
Dear Student, In the poem 'The Laburnum Top' the poet has explained about the symbiotic relationship between the goldfinch and the laburnum tree. The chirrup of the goldfinch and his chicks makes the dead silent tree alive. The tree, on the other hand, gives protection and houses the chicks of the goldfinch.
Introduction. The poem “The Laburnum Top” by Ted Hughes describes the mutual relation between a Laburnum Tree and a goldfinch. Both of them are yellow in colour (the tree is yellow because of its flowers) and quite beautiful in appearance.
Betty and Dolly were the two younger cousins of the poetess' mother. They accompanied her on a beach holiday in their childhood days.
In the poem 'Photograph', the sea represents timelessness. The poet says that the sea ' appears to have changed less'. The sea is an element of nature where time has little or almost no influence.
The tone of the poem is that of sadness. Shirley Toulson looks at an old photograph of her mother and is reminded of her mother who is no more. She recalls the moment when her mother was twelve years old and looked sweet and happy.
Answer: The poetess is sad about the fact that her mother's laughter is history. Her mother feels the same for her childhood days. The word 'wry' here means disappointment. Both of them are disappointed and dejected over their loss.
Age eleven is so important for the poet because at this age he would be able to mark the difference between what is a fact and what is a fiction. The poet also feels scared and is worried because he thinks that with the end of his childhood, he has lost his innocence and purity of thoughts.
In the poem “Childhood”, the poet repents the loss of his childhood by remembering the various stages when his thoughts and perceptions about the world and people changed.
The poet lose his childhood when he enters in twelfth year.
Answer: The poet, basically, seems to be obsessed about his childhood and, more so, about its loss. He feels very nostalgic and lament over the fact that his childhood will never come back.
The poet starts out asking 'when' did his childhood go and then in the last stanza he asks, 'where' did his childhood go. It seems like he has finally reconciled to the idea that his childhood is gone without being able to set a specific hour to it.
Answer: The poet is unable to recollect the innocence of his infancy. Therefore he question where his childhood has gone. He feels that it has gone to a forgotten place.
Childhood is often contrasted with the period of 'infancy', in which we are still young babies. As children, we can think and speak for ourselves, but we have yet to become adults. Adulthood is the time in our life when we are 'grown up', though we may still be developing as people.
List all the poetic devices used in the poem Childhood by Markus Natten.URGENT!
- Hypocrisy – II Stanza – when he found out that the adults preached one but practised another.
- Individuality – III stanza.
- Rhyme Scheme – The poet does not follow any particular rhyme scheme.
In the poem 'Childhood', the poet is trying to realise the age when he lost his childhood, when he became mature enough to understand the worldly things. So he keeps saying, “When did my childhood go?” He finally realises that his childhood is gone to “some forgotten place”, “that is hidden in an infant's face.”
Twitch : Small, often involuntary movement of a body part. Chirrup : An onomatopoeic word capturing the sound made by a bird. Startlement : Amazement - a sudden unexpected action which causes surprise. Sleek : Smooth - In the context of the poem, it could imply a quick movement without much disruption.
What happens when the goldfinch enters the thickness? Ans. As the goldfinch enters the thickness, a confusion of sounds is stirred up as if a machine had started working. Slight shaking of wings and quavering sounds make the tree tremble and full of excitement.
The poem “The Laburnum Top” by Ted Hughes describes the mutual relation between a Laburnum Tree and a goldfinch. Both of them are yellow in colour (the tree is yellow because of its flowers) and quite beautiful in appearance. The Laburnum Tree is beautiful, large but quite silent and getting naked because of winter.
Ted Hughes's "The Laburnum Top" is a poem about the cycle of life. It begins, in the first stanza, with a description of a tree in autumn. Some of its leaves are turning yellow, and its seeds have fallen. This represents one life fading and another, in the form of the seeds, about to begin.
The image of the engine is evoked by the poet because it serves as a source of energy for the purpose of runnig machine. Similarly the bird serves as a source of energy for its family. The way a machine cannot work without an engine, similarly the family won't be able to survive without the bird.
the poem the voice of the rain by walt whitman signifies the eternal role that the rain plays in nurturing,quenching,nourishes and purifying the various elements of earth.It returns the favour to its origin from where it rises impalpable out of the land and from the depths of the water.
The laburnum is the tree whose top part is silent due to lack of movement. There is no breeze and hence there is no rustling of leaves. The tree suddenly starts trembling and moving as if a machine has started up. This is due to the arrival of the goldfinch in her nest in order to feed her young ones.
Hughes describes this as "the engine of her family," a gathering of small birds who the goldfinch is able to "stoke" as she would an engine by feeding the baby birds with the food she has gathered for them.
