The mood of the poem is bright at the start talking about the look of the fireworks and how they sound but then as the poem goes on it becomes slightly more dark and gloomy for example ‘ Men who died, am forced to taste my fear’ this gives the poem quite a creepy effect and in a way it is making the fireworks look bad and sort of saying they are like guns because its making the man scared and reminding him of men dying.
Now I am going to talk about each stanza of the poem to start with im going to talk about the 1st one the first one which reads like this:
‘For days these curious cardboard buds have lain
In brightly coloured boxes. Soon the night will come.
We pray there will be no sullen rain
To make these magic orchids flame less bright.’
This stanza is one of the most important of the whole poem because its job is to introduce the theme of the poem. In this 1st stanza it is talking about the build up to when the fireworks go off and there praying that there will be rain on the big night. Its also comparing the fireworks to flowers for example ‘To make these magic orchids flame less bright’.
‘Now in the garden’s darkness they begin
To flower: the frenzied whizz of Catherine-wheel
Puts forth its fiery petals and the thin
Rocket soars to burst upon the steel
This stanza is talking about the start of the fireworks when they go off. Also there talking about the different fireworks and describing what the particular one is like the Catherine wheel and using adjectives to do with plants again and really its going through the process of a little flower growing into a big one.
Bulwark of a cloud. And then the guy,
Absurdly human phoenix, is again
Gulped by greedy flanes: the harvest sky
Is flecked with threshed and glittering golden grain.
This paragraph is when the firework hits the sky its saying there’s clouds and then they introduced guy like guy fawkes next they compare the firework to a phoenix and fire then it uses a metaphor for fireworks ‘golden grain’ so that’s telling you the colour and the style of the sparks.
‘Uncle! A cannon ! Watch me as I light it !’
The women helter-skelter, Squealing high,
Retreat; the paper fuse is quickly lit,
A cat-like hiss, and spit of fire, a sly.
This stanza starts off with someone telling there uncle about a cannon and he is saying how he is lighting a firework. Then its talking about after the boy lighting it he has to run away then it says about it squealing high then as it is about to go off it lets off a ‘cat like hiss’.
Falter, then the air is shocked with blast.
The cannon bangs and in my nostrils drifts
A bitter scent that brings the lurking past
Lurching to my side. The present shifts,
This stanza talks about the impact as the firework hits the sky then it introduces a new sense into the poem the sense of smell with the line ‘ A bitter scent that brings the lurking past. Then at the end of the stanza the persons mind is drifting over to anthoer subject not the fireworks.
Allows a ten-year memory to walk
Unhindered now; and so im forced to hear
The banshee howl of mortar and the talk
of men who died, am forced to taste my fear
This paragraph is bringing you back in time to the speaker of the poems memory by some of the words and sentences in there I think that he is reminiscing about war and all the loud bangs of the fireworks and the bright colours is bringing him back to bad memories of men dying in the war also the last of the senses is added taste so now all of the senses have been put into the poem.
I listen for a moment to the guns,
The torn earth’s grunts, recalling how I prayed.
The past retreats. I hear a corpse’s sons
‘Who’s scared of bangers!’ ‘Uncle! John’s afraid’
This is the final stanza to finish off the poem it starts off with him still in the past thinking about the war and all the guns firing then he thinks he can hear one of his dead friends son but really its his nephew and he is suddenly brought back to the real world and then that is the end of the firework display.
Next thing to discuss in this poem is language. Language is a integral part of a poem it is vital to use suitable language for the audience you are aiming for and really it has to have an affect on them one use of good language Vernon scannell uses is alliteration with these three words ‘Glittering golden grain’ this gives an image of a firework going into the air then exploding into these golden fiery grains spread wide across the sky.
The next technique he uses is a metaphor he uses this by comparing flowers to fireworks we all know that fireworks have nothing to do with flowers but he uses this way quite well he is saying that flowers and colourful and bright this is shown in this quotation ‘To make these magic orchids flame less bright’.
Also he is saying as a bud bursts into a flower it is like a firework exploding into its colourful state.
Another technique Scannell uses is personification he uses it by saying ‘The torn earth grunts’ so he is giving the world human qualities by saying it can grunt when the world obviously can’t make any noises. The last technique that Scannell uses is onomatopoeia he uses this in the part where it says the ‘A cat like hiss’ which is describing the Catherine wheel to us.
This poems structure of this poem is that there are seven stanzas with four lines in each one which is good because it gives it a consistent layout. Also the last four of the first line of every stanza rhymes with the last word on every line of every stanza on the third line and the same goes for lines two and four this makes the poem a easier read and gives it a good ring to it also its good that he has not over rhymed it because that could of spoilt the whole thing. The effect the size of the stanza has on the poem is that it makes the verses short and snappy and not giving you to much to read in one go.
So to conclude I think this is a good well thought out poem that is worth reading I don’t usually like poetry but I like reading this one because I found it easy to read the words weren’t to complicated and I found it quite easy to explore the effects and hidden things you can find in it.
