Compare and contrast - The poem Woman Work is written by Maya Angelou and depicts the daily routine of a black woman in the southern states of America whereas the poem overheard In County Sligo is a poem set in Ireland written by Gillian Clarke.

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Compare and Contrast

Modern other cultural poetry

Bethany Edwards

The poem Woman Work is written by Maya Angelou and depicts the daily routine of a black woman in the southern states of America whereas the poem overheard In County Sligo is a poem set in Ireland written by Gillian Clarke. The poem tells the story of an Irish housewife and her unattainable dreams.

Woman Work asks us to consider the black woman’s plea as we hear of the gruelling routine she faces everyday. This woman does not have many wishes; she just strives for a break in her day and dreams of returning to her African home country. We do not know if she has ever been to Africa but she considers it her home. The poem asks us to think about all the things we take for granted as we all have such big aspirations whilst this woman just yearns for a rest. In contrast to this the poem women work tries to make us realise how much women were expected to give up in the early 19th century to become housewives. They were expected to give up their dreams and aspirations and the opportunities of a career for women weren’t really there. As in woman work the female character in this poem asks us to hear her plea and listen to all her lost dreams and similar to woman work she feels like a slave in her own home.

Woman work has five stanzas as does over heard in county Sligo. The first in woman work describes her daily routine and the four after reflect on her dreams and aspirations for life. In comparison to this stanzas in overheard explore the woman’s situation, dreams and ambiguity, the lady In woman work does not portray ambiguity whereas the lady in county Sligo is said to “live in the lap of the land, in the back of beyond”. For some people this would be paradise but for her it is like prison; she craves the bustle of a city. The stanzas in woman work are not all the same lengths. The first stanza is long the rest have a pattern of four lines each. The first is longer because it reflects upon her daily routine, long with no breaks, whereas her dreams are put across in the last 4 stanzas and they are smaller and less demanding. This is not the case for overheard; the stanzas are all consistently 4 lines long.

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Both poems are written in the first person, this really helps us emphasise with the women’s feelings and situations. For each poem a lot of dialect and vocabulary are used native to the countries these women are living in, Ireland and Southern America. In over heard it is more the names of places in Ireland which let us know the poem is set there whereas in woman work there is a lot of strong southern American dialect being used. A perfect example of this is the title of the poem “woman work.” To us this phrase is grammatically incorrect. The ...

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