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How do poets convey meaning/emotions to their readers?
A poem conveys meaning and emotions by writing of their own experiences and their
feelings during those experiences.
As a reader you should feel empathetic to the author and be able to put yourself in their
position.
I personally felt empathetic for Miklos Radnoti reading “Letter to My Wife.” (Radnoti,
369) The message that I received from this poem is that he had been separated from his
wife in a time of war and is questioning whether or not he will ever see her again.
“Radnóti's poems were often melancholic and introspective” as they were written while
he was in a labor camp in the midst of the World War 2.
(http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/radnoti.htm)
He most likely did not see his wife again because he died on a march towards Germany
at the age of thirty five. (http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/radnoti.htm)
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What is the relationship between poetry and truth?
The truths that poetry conveys are subjective because they are personal truths
from the author’s perspectives influenced by their own experiences, rather than
absolute truths. However this poetry is supported by historic events that the
poems are about or took place during. (Forche 31)
The event that is the subject of an author’s poem as well as the author’s
individual back round work as evidence to support their poems.
For example Siamantro writes, “In the town of Bardez where Armernians are
still dying, a German woman, trying not to cry told me the horror she witnesses”
He then quotes the woman as she explains the casualties she has witnessed.
‘”This thing I’m telling you about, I saw with my own eyes. Behind my window
of hell I clenched my teeth and watched with my pitiless eyes: the town of
Bardez turned into a heap of ashes. Corpses piled high as trees. From the waters,
from the springs, from the streams and the road, the stubborn murmur of your
blood still revenges in my ear”’ (Siamanto, 57, 58)
This poem is supported by the Armenian Genocide which Siamanto
experienced first hand. He was arrested by Turkish authorities in April 1915 and
killed. ArmenianHouse.org (http://armenianhouse.org/siamanto/siamantoen.html)
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How do the events or time period influence poetry?
(Carolyn Forche, 121) Osip Mandelston Symbolism to political means
(Ben Belit, 13,14)
Pablo Neruda
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How does a poet’s poetry change there role in an event?
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Miklos Radnoti : Slave during the event currently presenting event to us,
window in.
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How does poetry of Witness change the opinion/ awareness of the reader verses
dry historical documents?
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How do poets use imagery in their poetry to convey the feeling of
events?
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