Comparative Poetry Essay
In this essay I will be looking at four poems. The four poems are; ‘The Beggar Woman’ by William King, ‘Rapunzstiltskin’ by Liz Lockhead, ‘I Wanna Be Yours’ by John Cooper Clarke and ‘Our Love Now’ by Martyn Lowery. They include subverted and traditional roles. All poems are about love and the different sides of relationships. They are conveyed through language, imagery and similes/metaphors.
‘The Beggar Woman’ is about a gentleman who while hunting falls upon a poor, lower class woman who is carrying a baby on her back. The man starts sweet talking her. The poor woman tricks the man and (to the gentleman) tied the baby. She tricks the man and runs away. The woman was trying to teach the man a lesson as he tried to use her for sex. The gentleman compares the lower class woman to a game. He treats her as if she is the prey and he is the predator. I think the message the poet is trying to send is, that men only want one thing in relationships i.e. sex. At the beginning of the poem the man is labelled a ‘gentleman’ and the woman is labelled a ‘beggar’, this shows the difference between them. There is a powerful metaphor in the beginning of the poem, ‘For he himself had other game in view’. This suggests that the man is the predator and the woman is the prey. This poem has an unexpected ending as you would not think the woman would be able to giveaway her own baby to an unknown stranger. ‘I trust the child to you with all my heart; But, ere you get another, tent amiss To try a year or two how you’ll keep this’. This suggests the woman is trying to teach the man a lesson and at the same time unburdens herself. Some of the roles in this poem have been subverted. You would expect the gentleman to be smart, intelligent and witty and the poor beggar woman to be dumb, slow and stupid. Instead the woman is the clever one and the man is the foolish type.
