Rejection and Years Ago are both poems that discuss the theme of love and relationships that have gone wrong.

In Rejection the poet uses imagery to reiterate the consequences of a rejection. This is successfully accomplished by the poet by referring to the 5 senses: sight, taste, hearing, touch and smell. This enables the reader to understand the poet’s feelings more and enables the readers to empathise with the poet.  The simile in the second stanza “It feels like the scraping of fingernails,” depicts the unpleasant feeling that rejection can produce. The fatal sound can be described to be deathlike highlighting that rejection is so heart-breaking that it is equivalent to death.  

On the contrary in Years Ago Jennings uses imagery however in a much more literate manner by solely recollecting memories she uses imagery by using a narrative voice until the third stanza. An example of this is when she states “Sometimes we would laze upon the river bank just touching hands…” This quotation emphasises the connection between love and nature. This idea of nature and love can also be seen when Jennings compared her relationship with the swans furthermore it emphasises that maybe there is still hope in this relationship because nature is usually a cycle, therefor never ending which could suggest that the relationship will never end. This emphasises the that Years ago has a much more positive attitude compared to Rejection.

In Rejection the poet writes the poem in a certain structure which reflects what the writer states in her last stanza “Like the last curled sandwich.” The poems could also be said to be written in the structure of a sandwich; the top two stanzas look at the sense of sight whereas the middle longest stanza looks at the other 4 senses.   This suggests that that in love; sight begins and ends a rejection, this suggests that the judging by sight can lead to problems which may be the reason Sullivan was rejected. This adds to her advisory tone   The poet uses short stanzas and a significant amount of enjambment. This technique increases the tempo of the poem and the use of enjambment intensifies the idea that the words are just falling out of her mouth uncontrollably emphasising her anger and how upset she is. However there is a pause of thought in the second stanza where she states “Rejection looks like- me, I suppose.” Here it is as though she has calmed down but there is still the presence of a very depressed and sad tone once again gaining her empathy from the readers.

 On the other hand Years Ago takes a much slower and soothing approach. As a result of the poet cherishing memories she intentionally uses long sentences and the use of enjambment between the first and second stanza, this shows that she had a “memorable summer of hot days” even in the river bank. It is as though the poet did not want to stop her sentence in case her love cycle was broken whilst moving to the next stanza conveying her strong love for the relationship. The presence of end stopping at the end of each sentence in the last stanza is similar to the poem Rejections because they both use end stopping in order to represent anger or sadness.

In both poems the poets are writing about a relationship that went wrong. In the poem Rejection the poet uses a number of techniques such as imagery and a strong tone to present her ideas. On the other hand the writer uses a very narrative voice in order to represent a recollection of her memories. The title- years ago links with the first three stanzas of the poem which took place before she too was rejected.  This is signified when she states in the last stanza “This is the love I knew long ago.” Years ago highlights the causes of her rejection which is the main message of her poem. This is emphasised because she used a list of three right at the end of her poem. On the other hand in the poem Rejection the emphasis is more on the consequences and the pain of being rejected. As Sullivan’s tone is much more self-pitying the readers feel a negative atmosphere. Conversely in the other poem Jennings has a much more positive attitude and seems to feel guilty rather than self-pitying this shows that she has learnt from her mistakes so has more of a chance of going back into the cycle of love that her poem represents/  

Overall I think Rejection is more successful at using imagery and giving the reader a very clear understanding of the feelings that one goes through after a rejection therefor emphasises the pain that one feels when love goes wrong which is the main theme of the two poems. I feel that Rejection was much better at portraying this as it reached all my senses and therefor made me feel as though I was going through her problems with her; this made me empathise with her further as I felt closer to her.