Poetry Collection

A reflection on an original poem by Michael Ondaatje:-

Sweet Like a Crow

Sweet Like a Crow

Your voice sounds like a scorpion being pushed

through a glass tube

like someone has just trod on a peacock

like wind howling in coconut

like a rusty bible, like someone pulling barbed wire

across a stone courtyard, like a pig drowning

a vattacka being fried

a bone shaking hands

a frog singing at Carnegie Hall.

Like a crow swimming in milk

like a nose being hit by a mango

like the crowd at the Royal-Thomian match,

a womb full of twins, a pariah dog

with a magpie in its mouth

like the midnight jet from Casablanca

like Air Pakistan curry,

a typewriter on fire, like a spirit in the gas

which cooks your dinner, like a hundred

pappadans being crunched, like someone

uselessly trying to light 3 Roses matches in a dark room,

the clicking sound of a reef when you put your head in the sea,

a dolphin reciting epic poetry to a sleepy audience,

the sound of a fan when someone throws brinjals at it,

like pineapples being sliced in the Pettah market

like betel juice hitting a butterfly in mid-air

like a whole village running naked onto the street

and tearing their sarongs, like an angry family

pushing a jeep out of the mud, like dirt on a needle,

like 8 sharks being carried on the back of a bicycle

like 3 old ladies locked in a lavatory

like the sound I heard when having an afternoon sleep

and someone walked through my room in ankle bracelets.

Evidence of the East's influence

The East is clearly evident in the sounds and language of Michael Ondaatje’s poem in various instances; however, it is most evident in three moments. Firstly, when he states “Like a vattacka being fried,” this would not make sense to your average Canadian, however, this is a fish commonly eaten in the east, showing the East's cultural influence in this poem. Another example is when he said “Like pineapples being sliced in the Pettah market,” the market mentioned is a market in Sir Lanka, once again proving how common the east is shown in this poem. Finally, it can be seen when he says “Like a nose being hit by a mango,” this is a simile commonly used in the east, thus showing how truly evident the east is in Michael Ondaatje’s poem.

Effective and ineffective similes

The two similes that I feel are most effective in this poem are "Like a hundred pappadans being crunched," and "Like the sound of a fan when someone throws brinjals at it," The reason I find these two similes to be effective is that they allow one to visualize or imagine the scene being described easily, which in turn allows them to understand how unpleasant this voice that the writer of the poem is describing. The only simile which I found to be un-effective is “ like Air Pakistan curry," the reason I do not believe this to be useful is that this simile does not describe a sound. The writer of the poem is writing about a voice which in turn would lead us to believe that he would compare them to audio sounds rather than anything else. Although perhaps the writer added this simile, well aware of this fact, I believe it did not help in delivering this poem.

Unique Verbs:-

Some of the verbs that I found to be interesting were, trod, tearing, and crunched. The reason I find them to be successful is that they are rightly expressive and add more color and feeling to the poem.

Audio of poem:

(Audio could not be incorporated due to technical difficulties, therefore they have been placed separately in drop-box)

The Smell of Fish

By: Halima Mohamed.

The smell of fish is like the smell of garbage piles

on the streets of Mansoura

Like deeply inhaling the spray of a skunk

Like the smell of rotting flesh

As strong as gulping down a bucket of gasoline

Like farms freshly fertilized with dung

Like drinking in the scent of pollution

Like choking on the smoke of a fire

Like being stuck in a clog of sweaty bodies at a concert

Like suffocating on the smell of despair

Like entering a bathroom after many others

Like the awful smell from the interior of a new bag

Like smelling the sickeningly sweet scent of vomit

while unpacking bags at a recycling factory.

To a Fat Lady Seen from the Train

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

Missing so much and so much?

O fat white woman whom nobody loves,

Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

When the grass is soft as the breast of doves

And shivering-sweet to the touch?

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

Missing so much and so much?

Effectiveness of repetition

It is in my belief that the repetition done in this poem is indeed effective in delivering it across. The reason for this belief is that with repetition comes the emphasis of a point. So by repeating specific lines, we can understand the feeling and frustrations of the person in this poem. For instance, the sentence “O why do you walk through the fields in gloves, Missing so much and so much?” when repeated multiple times, as is done in this poem, helps us understand the image that the person who is looking from the window of a train has of this women. The image he has is of a lonely and depressed woman who is missing much in life as we can perceive from said part of the poem. Thus giving credit to the belief/point that repetition is indeed useful in this poem.

Narrators perspective

The narrator has described this woman as such because that was his first impression of her. This description that the narrator gives implies that he is a person who judges based on outer appearance and already profiles a person as well as assumes their characteristics without getting to know them. This also implies that the narrator is quick to jump to conclusions, for example, the narrator describes the women as unloved, however, he basses this on his standards and her physical appearance. It is unknown to us as well as the narrator whether this woman is genuinely unloved or not.

Audio of Poem

In Drop-box

Synonyms

Separation/Isolation= Darkness/dark, Cold, Pain, Emptiness, nightfall, pitch dark.

Rhyme with darkness: Timeless, Mindless, Blackness, Ruthless, Formless.

To This Unending Darkness

By: Halima Mohamed.

O how far does this darkness go

For how long will it remain so?

Why does it stay so formless

O how far does this darkness go

So quiet it is yet so ruthless

As though in here it is timeless

O how far does this darkness go

For how long will it remain so?

Metaphor

A reflection on a group of poems with various writers.

Waves

By: Anonymous- Arabic

Waves

bow

before

the shore

courtiers

to their king

and then

withdraw.

The Flame

By: Raymond Shuster

One

red

cardinal

first

shooting

flame

of

spring

Poem 3

By: Kaneko Tota

After a heated argument

I go out to the street

and become a

motorcycle.

Poem 2

By: J.W. Hackett

Searching the wind,

the hawk's cry...

is the shape of it's beak.

Comparison of metaphors

Poem #C :-

In this poem, the writer describes the emotional feeling of anger as riding a motorcycle. The author of this poem details the feeling of anger, as riding a motorcycle because it is loud, intimidating, scary, and at times they both result in tragedies due to strong impulses. For instance, a driver on a motorcycle might, on an impulse due to the “exhilarating” feel of speed; perhaps they might speed up and hit someone, just as when in rage, a person might impulsively make or do an action/decision they will greatly regret.

Poem #B :-

In this poem, the author goes on to compare the sharp cry of a hawk to its sharp beak. What the author is hinting at in this poem is that the sharp sound of a hawk's cry is as sharp as its beak, which, speaking from a realistic perspective is exceptionally sharp.

Poem #A (The Flame):-

In the first poem, the author compares the color of the red cardinal to a flame. It is in my opinion that the author is suggesting that the bright redness of this bird, in the ending months of winter and beginning of spring, is like a flame in a dull and bleak landscape, during that time.

Poem #D (Waves):-

In this poem, the relationship between a king and their courtiers is being compared to that of waves to their shores. The author of this poem seems to compare these two because, a courtier commonly delivers messages to their king just as waves deliver materials, foreign or found in whatever body of water they are in. Adding to the fact that at times courtiers bare good things and other times bad, just as the waves bring good, such as jewels, shells, or any other material, and sometimes dangerous such as polluted matter or radioactive chemicals from the waves onto the shore.

Effective metaphors

The metaphor which I think to be the least effective is the Poem A, utterly because I greatly struggled in comprehending it. While it is good to be a little ambiguous for some metaphors, I believe this one to be a bit too ambiguous. It took me a great deal to connect the color of the cardinal to spring, as there was rarely any connection. The most effective poem and the one I enjoyed the most was the last one Poem 4. I found an absolute beauty in the way the poem was written; it was also straightforward for me to understand the intended meaning and to draw my own meanings and conclusions from this poem. Although it might be a bit puzzling at first glance I think it was not too ambiguous nor was it too transparent, it was at a perfect medium between the two for me.

Senses employed (Part A)

Poem A:

In this poem, the author uses two acute senses while delivering the poem, and they are sight and touch. We can see how the author uses sight, in two ways, firstly in the fact that he describes or sees a color. Another is in his ability to see the bird and the landscape in the first place, to see an object one must use their sight, therefore the author uses the sense of sight in his poem. The author, also includes the sense of touch, in that he describes the bird as a flame in contrast to the bleak landscape, when a person used to seeing a specific color or image suddenly sees something bright, it hurts to look at due to the sudden contrast. Therefore, the author implies that seeing this bird hurts on a physical level due to its brightness, thus using the sense of touch. It is in my opinion, that the sense of sight is the dominant one, because the author bases the entire poem off of the color, brightness, and contrast of the bird to the landscape and these all employ the sense of sight.

Senses employed (Part B)

Poem B:

The senses being described/used in this poem would be touch and sound. We can see the sense of touch being employed in this poem when the author describes the hawks cry to be as sharp as its beak. To know if something is sharp or not one must use the sense of touch, and the author is thus saying that the pain from being poked by such a sharp beak is similar to the grating and ringing sound of its cry. The second sense being described is sound, the only way to know that a hawk's cry is sharp is by hearing it, if one does not hear it, then they cannot describe it, meaning that the second sense being employed is sound. The dominant sense in this poem is most definitely, the sense of sound as the whole poem is made to describe the sound of a hawk's cry.

Reasoning of vertical form

In my opinion, this style of writing was meant so that the poem can flow in its unique rhythm. By shaping the poem as such, it allows the reader to slow down and find their own rhythm and pace for each poem. For instance when reading the 2nd and 3rd poem I found it hard to find a pace, however when reading the first and last poem I found that I read each word of the poem in its own mood, because it was written in a vertical way allowing me to derive a sound according to the mood, for each word.

Audio/Comparison of Poem

(Audio in drop-box)

With this question, I decided to experiment in many ways, and I found that even if my tone stays the same, the flow, pace, and meaning were taken out of the poem. By reading it as a sentence, it felt bland, as though I was talking of nothing important. However, when reading a poem as it should be read, it felt look there was some wisdom and meaning to ponder in this poem.

Poem ideas

(Pocket Watch = How humans go through their life/youth taking their time without any aims, while forgetting that time is going quickly and on course.)

(Nuclear explosion= The negative aspects of gaining new knowledge)

(Sad person= The depression and misery caused by the relentless pangs of regret)

(Moonlight= Behind every great person/thing is an under-appreciated figure who through them did a person achieve greatness/radiance)

Metaphors

Knowledge

By: Halima Mohamed

Knowledge

can at times be

the key to

the locked door of

Misery

Regret

By: Halima Mohamed

Regret

is a starved beast

that survives

on the flesh

of one's

conscious

Time

By: Halima Mohamed

Humans

plod

aimlessly

whilst

time

flies

designedly

The Moonlight

By: Halima Mohamed

The moonlight

so praised

it is for the

radiance of the

sun