Carol Ann Duffy
Education for Leisure
terms
• Colloquialism: in a conversational manner that may
include slang:
• Connotations: emotional association a reader has
for a certain word:
– God …. in Education it has a – connotation not as
creator but destroyer.
Allusion: reference to other literary works
• Alliteration: repetition of consonant sounds at
beginning of sentences;
• Assonance: repetition of same vowel sound
– : open, broken; remembered, tendered
• Consonance: identical consonant sound at end of
word preceded by different vowel:
– Home, same, breath, worth
Dramatic Situation
• Dramatic monologue
• Speaker is a young adolescent male who is
bored and tired of being ignored, overlooked.
He wants attention in the worst way…by
committing Violence, playing god, causing
destruction and fear as a means of feeling
powerful.
• Speaking to the reader
• Tone is sinister: Today I am going to kill
something
• Tone is also ironic: contrast between the
speaker’s view of himself and reality.
Structure
• Regular lined verses
– Five stanzas - four lines each
• Poem moves from a threat to action
• Builds tension with escalating images of
violence
• Syntax: Short “jabbing” sentences. …Why?
• Other lines that are more lyrical
– Line 4
– Last line
STRUCTURE
• Punctuation
– Use of end stops and enjambment.
Title?
Ironic. Leisure of the unemployed, the drop outs,
the underclass. Time on their hands because
they have either dropped out of school or have
been expelled.
Language
• Colloquial diction, slang
• direct address at end
• Connotation of the word “genius”
– We usually associate the word with creativity, but
here word is used with irony. Not as bright as he
thinks. Irony of a poor education
– . “God”: association of omnipresent being who
created the world, but here used to show how
speaker takes joy in destruction: “I see that it is
good.” Capable only of destruction, not creation
Language
Imagery:
Grey with boredom [day]
Pavements Glitter:
Interesting contrast. Glitter with what?
(blood, something to do?)
language
• Allusion to Gloucester’s line in King
Lear.(WHY?)
• Image of fly being squashed
• Another Language. ( death vs language of
art)
• Ironic humor to show discrepancy
between speaker’s egotistical view of
himself and our view of him.
Musical Devices?
• Unrhymed free verse
• Non-metrical (pattern of stressed and
unstressed syllables.)
• Except for some Iambic meter in lyrical
lines (line 4 and last line) (yearning)
• Flat, plodding rhythm…reinforces the
monotony of his life.
Thesis
• Duffy
uses______________,___________,
• and__________________to
show_________________________.
• Duffy uses colloquial diction, allusions
to God, and a threatening tone to
dramatize the increasingly violent
actions of a frustrated and
disenfranchised youth.
War Photographer
• From Duffy’s first collection: Standing
Female Nude 1985
War Photographer
• The poem comes from Duffy’s friendship
with Don McCullin and Philip Jones Griffiths,
two well-respected stills photographers who
specialised in war photography.
• Duffy is fascinated by what makes someone
do such a job and how they feel about being in
situations where a choice often has to be
made between recording horrific events, and
helping.
Vietnam War
Vietnam
Iraq, 2005
Iran, 1979
War Photographer
Terms:
Alliteration: repetition of (usually)
consonant sounds at the beginning of a
sentence. Big Bad Bear
Connotation: the emotional association we
have with a word.
Caesura: a pause within a line of poetry.
Used for dramatic effect, or to create
tension, surprise
Diction: word choice (contributes to tone)
Imagery: use of figurative language to create
images in mind of reader
Structure
• 4 stanzas
• 6 lines per stanza
• Regular rhyme scheme – ABBCDD, etc.
WHY?
• Imposes order in the chaos of war
• Like the photographer – order with the photos,
making sense of the chaos
• Syntax: short sentences. Serious approach to
work. Focused
• Punctuation?
– End stops at the end of each stanza
– In the middle of each stanza creating a caesure
– A pause. Why
• Perhaps to signify how war brings a sudden break to
our lives.
Make notes on the structure of the
first verse
In his darkroom he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to intone a Mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.
Is this continued throughout? Why?
• In his darkroom he is finally alone
• with spools of suffering set out in
ordered rows.
• The only light is red and softly glows,
• as though this were a church and he
• a priest preparing to atone a Mass.
• Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh
is grass.
alliteration –
what is the
effect?
Contrast to what?
What are the
connotations
of the
colours?
In his darkroom he is finally alone
with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.
The only light is red and softly glows,
as though this were a church and he
a priest preparing to atone a Mass.
Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.
Litany of horror;
what is the effect
of the caesura?
Simile –
reverence and
devotion to the
pictures
1. regularity/order
– reflects
structure
2. Suggestion of
graves/bodies
Isaiah 40:6 –
shortness of life
Ambiguity –
chemicals/solutions to
war
Implies
carelessness
He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays
beneath his hands which did not tremble then
though seem to now. Rural England. Home again
to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,
to fields which don’t explode beneath the feet
Why did
they not
tremble
then?
Why
now?
of running children in nightmare heat.
Suggests
idyllic life
True meaning to
the poem contrast
Contrast: barefoot
children running in
grass for fun/those
running from war – end
of innocence and,
possibly, life.
Cannot compare to
pain of war
Something is happening. A stranger’s features
Ambiguous:
Literal –
developing the
photo. Figurative
– person in pain
faintly start to twist before his eyes,
a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries
of this man’s wife, how he sought approval
Without words to do what someone must
and how the blood stained into foreign dust.
Metaphor – 1. image
on photo, 2. death
Photographer’s
dilemma – has a job to
do.
1. Photo
Trivialises;
we are only
moved
momentarily
2. Good/evil
3. Truth/lies
A hundred agonies in black-and-white
from which his editor will pick out five or six
Contrast
to war
zone
for Sunday’s supplement. The reader’s eyeballs prick
with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers.
From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where
He earns his living and they do not care.
Chooses photos
to suit the
article; don’t
convey the full
horror of war
Who
are
they?
Suggests they
are used for
entertainment
En route to
another
assignment; poem
is cyclical;
unceasing wars
Discussion Points
• How do you think this photographer feels
about their job? Pride or guilt?
• How do you think Duffy feels towards the
newspaper editors?
• What does Duffy seem to be suggesting about the
way the readers react to seeing these images?
• What is Duffy trying to point out about life in
Britain compared to Beirut etc?
• Themes?
Diction
• Which words or phrases seem significant
in contributing to the tone of the poem?
• For example alone…in first stanza
• Suggests isolation, detachment.
Theme?
• Effects of war
• Shows trauma caused by witnessing
tragedy, horrors of war.
• Juxtaposition of photographer’s inner
conflict, (being impassive, objective
among such horror) and the public’s
fleeting interest and lack of concern for
such events..
• Think about how Duffy uses certain literary
devices; for what effect?
• For example, in “War Photographer,” Duffy
uses rhyme scheme to impose order on a
chaotic world.
• The alliteration of Belfast. Beruit. Phnom
Penh is a harsh sound, suggestive of bombs
or bullets.
• Also, the caesura created between each city
creates a pause, similar to a sacred recitation
or prayer for the dead.
Reviw your Thesis-revise
How does author +verb+ lit. feature+ verb+lit.
effect + why.
War Photographer
• Duffy uses________, ______, and ______ to
reveal_______________.
• Write it down and share with class. turn it in.
Thesis example
• Duffy uses a regular rhyme scheme, a
shifting tone, and the contrasting
imagery of war and rural England to
reveal the cyclical nature of conflict and
the impassivity that some feel toward
others’ suffering.
Begin Commentary
• Paragraph
• First line states poet and poem and
explains what the poem is about.
Briefly Mention Structure and why it is important
• Insert your thesis here with two-three salient
features
• State first lit. device in thesis and give example
of how it is used and to what effect?cite line for
evidence.
• Transition to next example
Commentary
• Use formal third person
• Need to focus on literary devices and how
they contribute to the meaning of the
poem.
Comments on commentary
Commentaries need to be a a paragraph, not a list of
observations.
Must be specific
Some imagery is used to show ….
Which imagery?
State how features are used:
Syntax is regular?
– Why? How does fit poem?
\
Commentary continued
• Commentaries should have a thesis:
• How does author +verb+ lit. feature+
verb+lit. effect + why.
• In the poem Mrs. Aesop, Carol Ann
Duffy uses a sarcastic tone and
humorous allusions to Aesop’s Fables
to show the wife’s discontent in her
marriage and to depict her husband as
an unoriginal bore.
• Don’t refer to persona in poem as
narrator. It is a speaker
• Avoid empty phrases: It seems to me, in
my opinion, interesting to note. They
don’t add to commentary. They only
take up space.
“I have no choice.” Different
interpretations here, but the artist might
mean 1. needs $. 2. must paint because
he loves it. It is what he does
Stealing: central questions
• Why does Duffy use a contrast of
colloquial and poetic diction? What is
the effect?
• Discuss the central image of the
snowman in the poem. How does Duffy
use it?
• Colloquialism: in a conversational manner that may
include slang:
• Connotations: emotional association a reader has for
a certain word:
• Alliteration: repetition of consonant sounds at
beginning of sentences;
• Assonance: repetition of same vowel sound
– : open, broken; remembered, tendered
What is the dramatic situation?
Stealing
• Dramatic Monologue
• Angry tone
• Speaker? Who is he talking to?
Structure
• 5 stanza-5lined regular verse.
• Unrhymed and irregular in meter.
• Begins and ends with question.
Nothing unusual about syntax
Stanzas control the poem…keep it from spilling
over. Contains the energy
Language
• Slang: “Better off dead.”
• One word sentences
• Lyrical lines: “A tall white mute/beneth the
winter moon.” Why?
• Sharp violent verbs: piercing my gut
– Slice of ice. Why?
language
• Metaphor: snowman, Why significant?
• Simile: “ a mind as cold as the slice of ice
within my own brain.
• Caesuras in the middle of the lines. Why
effective
Musical devices
• Internal rhyme: “I started with the head/
better off dead
– Slice of ice
• Alliteration: ripped out in rags
• Repetition: Again. Again.
• Assonance: mute, moon, mats, mind:
Thesis
• Duffy uses a contrast of colloquial and poetic
diction, winter imagery, and the use of
caesuras to create a belligerent tone of a
young misfit who years for something better.
Standing Female Nude
• Title Poem of her first Collection of poetry:
Standing Female Nude
– 1985
Picasso
Standing
Female Nude
The Grand Nude; 1908
Gorges Braque 18921963
• Who has more power in this poem?
• What is Duffy saying about art?
•
Think about Power, Gender
and class struggles, the male
gazeideas, contrasts
Line breaks emphasize
and juxtapositions.
• Why in the last stanza do we have two one
word lines? What do they represent or
support?
• Finished… enjambment: line continues
just as the work seems to never end.
Tone?
• Cynical tone of a prostitute who poses for
money.
• “The bourgeoisie will coo…
– Inequality of the classes
– She stands for 6 hours for a few francs
– Poem ends on the mention of francs also.
Me
• Reassertion of the model’s
individualism.
• “Finished …..me.” Two lines stick out
and form their own thought
• Speaks also to the artist’s
transformation of model into an
unrecognizable version of herself.
Francis Bacon painting breaks
new record
• Sold last year for record breaking price of
$142,405,000 sold in 6 minutes
How to talk about punctuation:
• The phrase “Belly nipple arse” lacks
punctuation which shows that she is
being looked at as an overall item, not
for her individual attributes.
• This enjambment creates a broken
rhythm to the poem that relates to the
poverty of the model.
Literary Features?
• Duffy uses ___________, ____________, and
___________
• To convey both the ____________ and the
_______________________
Student Thesis
• Duffy uses a lack of punctuation, a
cynical tone, and enjambment to
illustrate the deception behind the ideals
of art; it is not a free, truthful medium,
but rather a business and industry in
which the subjects have little power to
define themselves.
Some thoughts on structure
• Duffy likes regular lined stanzas
• “I found that [Stealing] fell naturally (as
most of my poems do) into regular-lined
verses- in this case, 5 5-lined verses.
The verses are unrhymed and irregular
in meter. These free verses work for me
like small canvasses to hold the words
of the poem. They help to control the
rhythm of the poem… ”
For Monday (commentary on
SFN)
• Shooting Stars
• Annotate poem. Use different colors
highlighters or pencils. If you don’t have that
use boxes, circles and underlines.
• One color for images
• One color for diction (words that seem
carefully chosen for effect
• Punctuation
• Write a working Thesis at the bottom or top
of page.. Don’t write a commentary until after
we discuss it on Monday
agenda
• Commments on commentary
• Shooting Stars
More Poetry terms
A caesura is a strong pause within a line,
and is often found alongside enjambment.
Shooting Stars
Terms
Anaphora: the repetition of a word or
phrase at the beginning of successive
clauses.
Euphemism: mild or indirect word or
expression substituted for one considered to
be too harsh or blunt when referring to
something unpleasant or embarrassing.
Spoonerism: transposing first letter of
sequential words “ragged gape”
• Connotation: the emotional association of
a word
• Denotation: dictionary meaning
• Enjambment: the running over from one
line to another used to disrupt the reader by
breaking up thoughts. This can emphasize
certain points the poet wants to make, which
in turn emphasizes specific ideas or themes.
6 Groups: one per stanza 8 minutes
--In group, FIrst Reflect on title: discuss denotations and
connotations.
--- what is the dramatic situation and how is it demonstrated
through structure ( form, movement, end-stopped lines:
enjambment)/ Why 6 Stanzas?
--- Who is the speaker?
Groups will present their stanza discuss the following: in six
minutes (BE SUCCINCT. Make point and move on you only
have 8 minutes in oral for entire poem.)
-- What is the significance of the images and how do they
contribute to theme[s]?
5: What type of diction is used, what tone is created, and how
does it support theme or action of poem?
6 Discuss use of punctuation and how it supports theme or poet’s
intention.
Shooting Stars
After I no longer speak they break our fingers
to salvage my wedding ring. Rebecca
upright as statues, brave. You would not look at me. You waited for the bullet.
Fell. I say, Remember.
Remember these appalling days which make the world
forever bad. One saw I was alive. Loosened
his belt. My bowels opened in a ragged gape of fear. Between the gap of corpses I
How would you prepare to die, on a perfect April
evening with young men
gossiping and smoking by the graves? My bare feet felt the earth and urine trickled
down my legs. I heard the click. Not yet. A trick.
After immense suffering someone takes tea on the lawn. After the terrible moans a boy
use of biblical diction elevates stanza to prayer
Do not forget
Sister, if seas part us, do you not consider me?
at dusk
Tell them I sang the ancient psalms
inside the wire and strong men wept. Turn thee
unto me with mercy, for I
am desolate and lost.
Asks the world to be merciful
The assonance of the of the O is a
sorrowful sound
Persona
• A strong woman( speaking from the grave?)
describing how the women were brave as
statues.
• Ends with song (psalm 26-16) one of King
David’s, pleads with God for deliverance from
affliction, shame and death: ‘let not my
enemies exult over me’ (verse 2).
• In the last stanza the speaker asks the world
to be merciful.
Punctuation
• Lack of commas between names to
show loss of individuality.
• Elipses…. The names go on and on….
• Rhetorical questions: How would you
prepare to die? Do you not consider
me?
• 4th stanza: no commas…horror runs into
the mundane
Shooting Stars
• Duffy uses sorrowful diction, violent
imagery, and punctuation to show
the indifference to human suffering
during the Holocaust.
•
Warming Her Pearls Selling Manhattan.
Copyright © 1987
Warming Her Pearls as group:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Title?
Structure?
Context ( topic common to writer?)
Speaker?
Literal meaning?
Deeper Meaning? (can fill this out later)
Annotate by self only feature
assigned
One member mark only aspects of structure
and puncuation that seem significant.
One member mark important images (look for
contasting images also and why they might
support a theme)
One member Circle diction and Language that
is significant (word choice)
One member mark sounds (musical devices)
Group Thesis becomes outline for a
larger essay
•
•
•
•
•
Intro
l Structure and punctuation
ll Diction
lll Imagery
lV musical devices
Terms
• Satire: A type of literature in which folly,
evil or topical issues are held up to scorn
through ridicule, irony or exaggeration.
• Euphemism: an inoffensive word or
phrase substituted for one considered
offensive or harmful.
From Duffy in The Guardian Book
Club Feb 2012
• It appears alongside "Warming Her Pearls", a lesbian
love poem in the voice of a lady's maid who fancies not
the mistress's pearls but the mistress herself. I think
what I was interested in at the time of writing these
poems was in finding a language and imagery for the
erotic and the hidden or secret. The pearls warmed by
the pining servant's skin are, of course, a metaphor for
her desire; but a poem is also like a pearl – a languagejewel provoked into existence by the grit of feeling or
revelation.
Final comments
Warming her pearls
• Poem about a servant’s unrequited forbidden
love for her mistress
• There is also the underlying theme of class
division:
– Stanza 2: “Slack on my neck, her rope”
– Structure of contained stanzas=different worlds of
maid and mistress
• Last line: “I burn”- double meaning
– Both desire and resentment
– Pearls as symbol of wealth and desire
A Healthy Meal (not)
• Satire on the dining habits of the rich
• How does the contrast in imagery of animals
and people contribute to the irony of poem?
How do euphemisms in the poem reveal her
theme?
The Dolphins
• How does structure resemble the theme of
oppression or being trapped
• How does the unusual syntax contribute to
the movement and theme of poem?
Activity: Step 1 10 minutes
• 1. Meet in groups to discuss assigned
poem.
• 2. Identify poetic devices and how they are
used: what is their effect?
• 3. Come up with thesis statement
Step 2 10 Minutes
• The two youngest students in group move to
next group. (5 minutes)
• Teach your poem to the home team
– 5 minutes
• Home team teach visiting team
– 5 minutes
Step 3 10 minutes
• Same traveling team travel to next group
• deliver a 5 minute oral to the person across
from you. Use your cheat cheat if it helps.
Opening comments for Oral
• General comments of poem: Title, poet, context
(collection)
• Structure: Duffy uses…
• What is it about? Literal meaning
– Identify dramatic situation The speaker. Is it a dramatic
monolgue? Be clear with pronouns. She? Duffy? Or the
speaker
• Deeper meaning? Say one or two sentences here.
• Thesis
• Continue with analysis. Be sure to cite lines when you
discuss literary devices and their effects
Approaches for oral
1 Stanza by Stanza
2 Or by most obvious literary features in
poem stated in thesis
3 (Dramatic situation, structure,
Language, musical devices
• Make sure you are relating back to thesis,
literary effect and poet’s intent.
Evidence for Thesis
• 5-8 items Author uses______to (show,
illustrate, portray)
– State line number say the line and explain how it
connects to thesis, or poem’s theme. ( “In line 6,
stanza 2 Duffy alludes to King Lear: say line”.)
– Explain the literary effect (“Duffy uses allusion in
stanza two in order to show the alienation of this
young man from his education.”)
– Move to next example
The Dolphin
• What are the most notable poetic
features of this poem?
• Make list on board
• Circle the four most important
• How to organize
• The Dolphins by Carol Ann Duffy
World is what you swim in, or dance, it is simple.
We are in our element but we are not free.
Outside this world you cannot breathe for long.
The other has my shape. The other’s movement
forms my thoughts. And also mine. There is a man
and there are hoops. There is a constant flowing guilt.
We have found no truth in these waters,
no explanations tremble on our flesh.
We were blessed and now we are not blessed.
After travelling such space for days we began
to translate. It was the same space. It is
the same space always and above it is the man.
And now we are no longer blessed, for the world
will not deepen to dream in. The other knows
and out of love reflects me for myself.
We see our silver skin flash by like memory
of somewhere else. There is a coloured ball
we have to balance till the man has disappeared.
The moon has disappeared. We circle well-worn
grooves
of water on a single note. Music of loss forever
from the other's heart which turns my own to stone.
There is a plastic toy. There is no hope. We sink
to the limits of this pool until the whistle blows.
There is a man and our mind knows we will die here.
Group Thesis becomes outline for a
larger essay
•
•
•
•
•
Intro
l Structure and punctuation
ll Diction
lll Imagery
lV musical devices
Organize by features
• I will discuss each feature and how they
are present in each stanza.
• My Thesis:
• In “The Dolphins” Duffy uses regular lined
structure, unusual syntax, repetition and
imagery of loss to create pathos for the
dolphins whose world has been reduced to
an artificial pool.
The Dolphins Organize by
features Topic Sentences
1 Syntax is irregular to show how their world has
been changed.,
– “World is what you live in.” The Object (world)
becomes the subject
– Short sentences =flat tone
2 Repetition is used to reinforce the loss of
freedom and repetitive nature of their captivity.
(world, man, space, blessed, disappeared)
– Reinforces the repetitive motion of
– swimming in circles
3 Imagery of loss is shown through concrete images
and metaphor
5. Additional features: assonance, sorrowful tone,
A Healthy Meal
- connotations of people
-
Capped teeth chatter
Woman chewing
Fine seat bastes his face
Meat flops in jowls (internal rhyme jowls
+ connotations animals-juxtaposed
with cooking term
• Secret dreams of cows/ tossed
• Swish of oxtails/languished
• Breast/flew
• Language of tongues/braised
+ connotations of animals
• Duffy uses contrasting diction, a satirical
tone and gastronomical imagery to reveal the
human greed and cruelty against animals.
Literary terms to look for
• Metaphor: comparison between two disimilar
things that share a common trait.
• Movement. The overall progression of the
poem. How does is move from start to finish
and through time?
Moments of Grace: about time time and
memory. Discussion of senses and how they pull
us into the past, as well as bring us back into the
present…”Now I smell you peeling an orange.:
Blessings and grace; religious diction to honor
those moments of memory and present time.
Flowchart is used as Intro
• write an introduction paragraph, followed by
thesis
• Title?
• Structure?
• Context ( topic common to writer?)
• Speaker?
• Literal meaning?
• Deeper Meaning
• Then thesis
Procedure
• Read poem
• As a group Identify all poetic devices and
their contribution to the theme in your
stanza.
• Effect.
• Start with connotations of title.
• Who is speaker? What is it about?
• Share out with class
Practice Oral intro:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Intro
Title?
Structure?
Context ( topic common to writer?)
Speaker?
Literal meaning?
Deeper Meaning? Thesis
Commentary:
–
–
–
–
Dramatic situation
Structure
Language
Musical devices