Ode On A Grayson Perry Urn

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Tone/Voice

The poet uses an informal tone throughout the poem and begins it with a casual greeting, for example ‘Hello! What’s all this here?! – this creates a chatty tone and lets the reader know that the narrator is addressing them directly.

Language

‘Shirley Temple manque’ – ‘Shirley Temple’ is a famous actress who rose to fame as a child and the term ‘Manque’ refers to a person who has not been able to achieve their own personal ambitions. The poet might have included this to indicate to the reader that many young girls perhaps wish to be as famous as Shirley Temple but have failed to do so and that a problem with society is a unrealistic hopes.

‘crap estates…clad louts’ –  the use of alliteration puts emphasis on the adjectives ‘crap’ and ‘clad’, both of which are monosyllabic and are composed of plosive consonants which creates a harsh and abrupt sound, almost as if the people being described who live on these ‘crap estates’ are of a distasteful nature. Usually, the noun ‘louts’ is used to describe an aggressive male, however the poet has that clothed these ‘louts’ in ‘Burberry’ a high-class British designer which implies that the clothes they wear are not genuine.

Ode On A Grayson Perry Urn

Imagery

Creates the image of rebellious and reckless youth, for example ‘pumped on youth and ecstasy’. The connotations of this are youthful abandon and nonconformity. Also ecstasy is a metaphor for youth because it has a long lasting high but the drug does wear off and can cause a lower mood, which mirrors growing up, becoming old and suffering the consequences of the mistakes made.

It also creates the image of Russian roulette, for example ”given head in crude games of chlamydia roulette”. This mirrors the game of not knowing which chamber the bullet is in and that the symptoms for chlamydia are hard to distinguish and find, however the youth still play the risky ‘game’ which may be because they feel implored to do so. Turnbull might be highlighting the issues with society by including this.

Poetic Devices

Stanzas: There are five stanzas, each consisting ten lines of unequal length. The poem is in iambic pentameter for the majority of it which creates a regular, continuous and steadfast rhythm.

*Iambic pentameter is a rhythmic pattern that consists of five iambs per line

Caesura: Turnbull uses medial caesura (a pause in the middle on the line) often throughout his poem to highlight that innocence is exploited and abused in society, for example:

“the nervous squeals

of girls, too young to quite appreciate

the peril they are in”

Rhyme: The poet uses rhyme throughout his poem to add pace, this fast rhythm could represent the speed of youth and also the dangers of society, for example

“forever, pumped on youth and ecstasy,

on alloy, bass and arrogance, and speed

the back lanes, the urban gyratory,

the wide motorways, never having need”.

Some of the rhymes are near rhymes and the pattern is ‘ABABCDEDCE’ used throughout the whole poem apart from in the fifth and final stanza.

Themes

Tim Turnbull

Beauty: Tim Turnbull questions how beauty is defined in the society that we live in and what true beauty means, for example in the third stanza ‘Each girl is buff, each geezer toned and strong’.

Materialism and Consumerism: Turnbull suggests that this society is obsessed with vanities and so empathizes this point by referencing to brands or objects that are popular in western society, for example ‘Burberry clad louts’ or ‘every pair of Calvins’.

Time: The poem is inspired by Grayson Perry’s work who includes images of society on his ceramic work, however Turnbull suggests that the people on this urn are free from time, like Ode on a Grecian Urn, but these people in the poem are also frozen in time, for example ‘in crude games of chlamydia roulette’ the speaker implies they he can see the future but the youth are oblivious and naïve due to being frozen in time.

Context

Tim Turnbull was born in 1960 in North Yorkshire. He worked in the forest industry for years and started writing in the early nineties.

'Ode On A Grayson Perry Urn' is often described as a modern rendition of John Keats' 'Ode on a Grecian Urn', Grayson Perry is a ceramic vase artist who is known for his contemporary spin on classical vases, depicting them at odds with their attractive appearance.

An ode is a lyric poem, typically one in the form of an address to a particular subject, written in varied or irregular meter. It comes from the old Greek word, 'oide' which means to sing or to chant.