Compare the way the poets present the ideas of DEATH or LOSS in 'Mid-Term Break', 'On The Train', 'On My First Sonne' and 'The Affliction of Margaret'.

‘On The Train’ was written by Gillian Clarke, about the tragedy that was The Paddington Rail Crash, and the loss that succeeded it: there were 31 fatalities and over 500 injuries.  Clarke was on a train travelling home when she found out, and heard the news on her personal radio.  The death toll that was a result of the crash affected 31 individual sets of families and will have affected them all terribly.  Clarke also makes an extensive use of language to convey the significance of this tragedy and the massive effect that it has on the family and friends of the perished.  Immediately in the poem, Clarke suggests the vulnerability of people on the train: ‘cradled’ suggests that, like a baby, you are lulled into a false sense of security and perhaps you are vulnerable.  This is true: you have no control over the actions of the train, you are ‘sitting duck’ and are oblivious that perhaps you could die around the corner in an accident, much like Paddington Rail Crash.  She also uses this to suggest that this could happen to any of us.  The ‘walkman’ mention in lines one and two sets the time as being modern, and we immediately know that the poem is that of the recent times (aside from the fact of the poem written after the crash, and the crash was in 1999).  The metaphor of: ‘the black box of my walkman’ not only, as mentioned above, suggests the recentness of the poem, but also likens the walkman to the ‘black box’ flight recorder that is found on airplanes, which records the flight data in case of an accident.  This is ironic: the walkman is a ‘black box’ and yet there has been an accident, to which the black box is related to.  Mobile telephones are also referred to, also setting the poem as a recent one, but also stressing the importance of communication: ‘too soon to phone’, Clarke thinks that it is too early to phone her husband, but yet this also represents the importance of communicating with loved ones and also suggests that even though it is too early to phone, it may be your last chance to speak to a loved one, so to make the most of it.  The beginning of the third verse is the message received when you call a mobile phone that is unreachable: this is ironic, as the people that, like ‘wolves’ ‘howl into silent telephones’ get no reply other than a ‘the Vodaphone you are calling is switched off’ – and due to this ‘their phones ring in the rubble’.  This shows how the dead passengers of the train mobile phones are ringing ‘in the rubble’ of the wreckage, and are unanswered, so the called ‘howls into the silent telephone’.  The ‘rubble of suburban kitchens’ represents the rubble of people’s lives in the devastation upon hearing the news, and also because it is the morning, the ‘suburban kitchens’ are mentioned: they are in their kitchens, oblivious to the tragedy and also how they are preparing for the day ahead ‘unloading children at school gates’ and ‘locks click’ – all of these prove that the day is just beginning, and everyone is preparing for the day ahead.

In ‘On My First Sonne’, Jonson writes about the loss of his son.  He does not write in the poem about his premonition: “One night while sleeping, he saw a vision of his son with a bloody cross on his forehead.  His son appeared to be ‘of that Growth that he thinks shall be the resurrection’, meaning 33 years old, the age when Christ was crucified.  The following morning, a letter came from his wife, telling him that his son had died.  Although, the poem is simple, and illustrates the love that Ben Jonson feels for his son, and the grief he bears as the result of his son’s death.  Jonson feels that he sinned: ‘my sinne was too much hope of thee, lov’d boy’.  He believes that his sin was wanting too much for his son, and his punishment was to have his son taken away from him.  Lines 3 and 4 are about the ‘lending of his son from God’.  Jonson believes that his son has been ‘lent’ by God and agreed to God, and he will be returned on the ‘just say’, meaning the death of his son.

In ‘The Affliction of Margaret’, William Wordsworth writes about the frustration a mother bears because she does not know where her son is.  Margaret does not know where her son his, but the mystery is finally relieved when she hears of his fate.  The repetition of the phrase: ‘where art thou’ in the first two lines shows that she is constantly thinking of her son, whilst throughout the rest of the poem, Margaret imagines where her son might be and what has happened to him.  The second verse tells the reader that her son has been gone for seven years and her feelings: ‘despaired, believed, beguiled’ all highlight how she thought he would return and how she is ‘beguiled’ or ‘confused’ as we know it.

The four poems convey death and loss, or both.  ‘Mid-Term Break’ by Seamus Heaney is about the death of Heaney’s four year old brother, and the loss of the entire family.  Heaney uses sombre language to set the poem in a sombre tone, and to suggest a feeling of loss and death.  In ‘On The Train’ by Gillian Clarke, Clarke writes about The Paddington Rail Crash on 5th October 1999 and the extreme loss felt by the families of those who perished.  In ‘On My First Sonne’, a short poem of love and grief, the author, Ben Jonson, writes about how he feels love and grief after the death of his seven year old son.  In ‘The Affliction of Margaret’ by William Wordsworth, Wordsworth writes about a woman who does not know where her son is, and is unsure if he is dead, in a cell or dungeon, drowned in a sunken ship or lost in a desert.