In this essay I intend to look at the differences and similarities in the poems.
The first poem I intend to discuss is “Mid-Term Break” by Seamus Heaney. The title “Mid-Term Break” suggests the poem is about children as we associate a mid-term break with school holidays. Other first impressions given in this poem relate to poor health or death. We relate to this due to the use of nouns such as “sick bay” and adverbs describing school bells as “knelling”. This could also be reflecting the emotions of the child in the sick bay; at this point we are not sure.
The structure is interesting, because at first glance we see that it has a regular pattern to it, which are three lines to each stanza. This possibly implies that the events that take place in the poem are predictable. However, the final line is a stanza on it’s own, drawing you to it and creating a large impact on the audience.
In the second stanza an awkward atmosphere and tone is introduced. The poet meets his “father crying”; this is one of the factors that make this stanza awkward. Men in the days when this poem was written (1966) were stereotypically thought of as strong people emotionally and physically, therefore, for the young poet to see his father crying on the porch would have made him feel uneasy. Furthermore, the dash at the end if each line causes the lines to flow as one sentence, this is called enjambment. The effect of this is that we, as readers, read this stanza fast, giving a sense of how fast the events are taking place in the stanza. Enjambments continue throughout this poem emphasizing the fast and disorientated pace of the poem.
Awkwardness continues furthermore as more oddities occur. In the third stanza, elders stand up to greet and shake the hand of the poet. Like the crying of the father, this is unusual because the younger generation tend to show respect to the elders by standing while here this is not the case.
The description of the mother coughing out “angry tearless sighs” describes how she was sobbing. This could suggest that she is trying to hold back her feelings by not letting herself break down and cry. Because the sentence has carried on onto the next stanza it gives the impression to the readers that she is finding it hard to prevent herself from crying.
The noun “corpse” is a very detached word to use about a body of a dead family member. This could suggest how death has come as a shock to the family and does not seem real to them. “Candles and snowdrops” create a church atmosphere. They also give the presence of purity and innocence because they are pure white in colour.
Despite the detached attitude towards the dead body, a bruise described as the flower poppy, may suggest to us that he will remember the person. This is because poppies are used for remembering the dead of World War one. This flower could also, being bright red in colour, be used to describe the bruise, as it stands out from the body’s white complexion, helping us picture the state the body is in. Another possibility is that the body, like the poppy flower, is small and delicate.
Throughout the poem no rhyming pattern is used. However, the last two lines rhyme using the words “clear” and “year”. This has made the last lines stand out from the rest of the poems infixing them in the reader’s mind.
Both of these poems describe the death of a family member, however, they treat these deaths in different ways. Seamus Heaney has described the event awkwardly and in a detached way over a twenty-four hour period. Whilst, the poet Tony Curtis has reflected the prime of his father’s life and described his death as something he expected and only had to accept.
Unlike “Mid-term break” the first impression is that the poem “Strongman” will revolve around an adult, hence noun “man” in “strongman”. The adult is described as being physically strong and caring. He plays with his sons hanging them off his arms and “turning like a roundabout”. Similes are used to describe his chest “like a barrel” and neck like “holding onto a tree” giving an image of his bulk, strength and being durable like a barrel.
The structure is an eight-line stanza to describe the prime of this man’s life and a six-line stanza to describe the “final hour”. This could represent the length of the different stages of the father’s life. The first stanza also shows us how the father supports the son while in the second stanza the father’s time of strength is up and the son, in his prime, supports the father.
The final stanza continues to use wood as an example of strength, though this time the noun “plywood” is used. This is an appropriate comparison as plywood is, like an old man, very thin and weak. This comparison helps us to picture how a man once so strong is now so weak.
The father in this poem is supported in the “cradle” of his arms while he dies, while the younger brother in Heaney’s poem is supported in a “box”. This could suggest the relationships the poets had with these family members. Curtis may have had a strong bond with his father, however Heaney may not have felt the same towards his younger brother, though, this could possibly be the result of the lack of time they had together as life was snatched away from his brother so soon.
Both poems had strong thought provoking endings. One was a shocking last image of a dead four-year old and the other made me, as a reader, think that although I may be upset when someone old in the family dies, that this is natural and that I can accept this death. Though these two poem’s theme is death in families I was able to relate to the poem by Tony Curtis, “Strongman”, as I was able to rethink about how I feel about the fairly recent death of my grandfather.
