Mid-term Break focuses on the tragic death of a four year old sibling and the reactions of the main character and other personalities involved. The sudden and brutal understanding of the death is expressed strongly with the last line, 'A four foot box, a foot for every year.' This line emphasizes the boy’s strong sentiment of helplessness and injustice in regard to his brother’s death with the significance of the phrase, 'a four foot box' and more noticeably, the separation of the line from the last paragraph. This is particularly effective because the poem is made up of three line stanza until this point. The line break makes it easier to focus on the meaning and significance of this line. In addition, alliteration is meaningfully used with the words to slow the pace of the poem so they fall hard in a harsh manner and further emphasize the significance of this.
Mid-term Break is written in a largely passive voice. The description of this tragic event is very moving partly because of the author’s precise choice of words and phrases in that they describe real details of a life in its continuity. The description of parents crying, a baby laughing, and understated condolences from neighbors convey an atmosphere of almost indifference and helplessness throughout the poem until the last line. In the second line of the first paragraph for example, foreshadowing is effectively used with alliteration to impose a deliberate, eerie rhythm, 'Counting bells knelling classes to a close.' In effect, the placement of the sounds creates the slow and ghastly atmosphere and the addition of the verb;
'Knelling 'further enhances this mood with deliberately slow paced funereal bells directly alluding to death.
Rising Five is written in a rather active and lively narration with a lot more imagery whereas Midterm Break is particularly passive and dreary. While adjectives and adverbs pepper Rising Five and thus enliven the scene; they are used to set the atmosphere and rather sparingly in Mid-term Break. 'stem shook out the creases from their frills…every tree was swilled with green.' is a standard example of the visual use of adjectives and adverbs in Rising Five , where shook, creases and swilled bring the scene to life. On the other hand,
'Snowdrops and candles soothed the bedside…' is a standard example of the use of descriptive words and The word 'snowdrops' describing particular flower petals and the adverb 'soothed' are less important to the setting (the bedside) as they are to the atmosphere.
Analogies are used to present the central theme of Rising Five throughout the poem at the end of each stanza but the concept is best illustrated in the last paragraph, 'We never see the flower, but only the fruit in the flower; never the fruit but only the rot in the fruit.' It may be observed that the author chose to use alliteration to the most effect in this line to emphasize his point. In effect, the soft sounds that follow the consonants make the comparison easier to understand.
In both poems the tone changes from one paragraph to another. Although Mid-term Break is distinguished from Rising Five with its deliberately slow and sad tone, and the other with its rather quick paced, impatient tone both poems end with a similar sad, melancholic note.
In conclusion the two poems are very different in terms of structure and use of poetic techniques. Whereas Mid-term Break is written as a ballad in three line stanzas to convey a sense of continuous flow until the abrupt and brutal ending, Rising Five is written as a free verse poem with stanzas of six to seven verses that address the same theme with different metaphors punctuating different variations of the same idea. The use of repetition ingrains the theme of the poem into the reader. Lastly, Rising Five is unlike Mid-term Break in that it is a philosophical consideration on a way to live life, while Mid-term Break deals with human emotions and suffering associated with a single event where life is lost.
