Category: Poetry
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Poppies by Jane Weir
“Three days before Armistice Sunday”, saying farewell to her son as he leaves to go off to war, becomes the defining moment of this mother’s life. All she was feeling at that moment, all the pride and the sadness, live with her forever after, so powerfully important did that moment become due to the son’s…
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It isn’t fair
She sought himHe sought herThey sought meIt wasn’t fairShe loved himHe loved herThey loved meIt wasn’t fairWe sought themThey found usWe loved themIt wasn’t fairI am weWe are theyThey love usIt isn’t fair
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Terzenelle
I know my boundaries exclude you –You who would storm the barricade –Offer you and your cohorts no way through. I close my ear to your serenadeYou will not weaken the wall with choice words,Flatterings or hand grenades. Rise up with the morning birds,Rise on the thermal drafts beyond the heightThe wall is lower than…
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I Walk the Streets
I walk the streets of dark and rain,Seeking her who seeks the painOf love she can’t repay. I walk the streets of night and day,Hunting her who hunts the wayTo run from all who care. I walk the streets of shadow and glare,Watching for her who watches to ensnareThe one who shouldn’t be there. I…
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Those Winter Sundays
It is fitting to read Robert Hayden’s poem, ‘Those Winter Sundays‘, as the expression of belated gratitude for a father who, unable to speak his love, demonstrated it in practical ways. As a boy, the narrator knows nothing of “love’s austere and lonely offices”. Only as he has become a man, likely fulfilling comparable offices…
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The Charge of the Light Brigade
Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward. Alfred Lord Tennyson ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ 1854 Tennyson wrote ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ in dactylic dimeter, an unusual choice for an English poet. The reason for the choice is obvious – if one is writing a poem about charging horses…
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Caged Bird
Maya Angelou‘s poem, Caged Bird, is concerned with the lack of freedom. This theme is established through the comparison of the two birds – one free to fly where it will, the other with clipped wing, confined to a cage. This is a blatant image and leaves little to the imagination of the reader. Of…
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