Creating a Voice in Poetry :: Reports Poetry Poems Literature Essays

Creating a Voice in PoetryDiscuss how the poets create voices in their work. Write aboutReports and one(a) other song.The poem Reports focuses on one teachers cynical approach on writing shallow reports. This didactic poem take full advantage of using theimperative and pragmatics, as swell as manipulating graphologicalfeatures, such as the use of italics to indicate quotations. The poemis also written as a monologue, showing one side of a conversation,allowing the lecturer to focus on the opinions and character of anindividual... in this case the school teacher. Similarly, this methodis used in Carol Ann Duffys poem Head of English, taken from Standingfemale person Nude. The poem Head of English makes good use of writtenlanguage, creating the tone of a foreboding(a) school teacher but also usespunctuation to give the endorser an idea about the character portrayed.Head of English shows one characters disdain for another, hithertothe reader is only meant to visualise the seemin gly over confidentHead of English. Duffy uses a monologue style to allow the reader toengage with the teacher in question and allows the reader to empathise(although not sympathise) with the voice in the poem. The poem openswith the railroad lineToday we have a poet in the class.On a surface read through this opening line could be think toenthuse the pupils, however in my opinion this remark shows subtlehints of sarcasm, however unintentional or subconscious these may be.Grammatically the sentence expression suggests that the teacher is tothe point, there is no indication of a break betwixt Today and wealthough, the reader would expect a teacher to be pickings her time andwould at least expect to see a comma. As well as this the full stop atthe end of the line adds emphasis to the sentence and brings it to anabrupt end, almost definitely a purposeful move on the part of thepoet, to suggest to the reader that the character in the poem isabrupt. The hints of sarcasm are then backe d up among lines threeand five, when the teacher says Perhapswere going to witness verse sulfurous from the press.Who knows.The first sentence suggests that the teacher is testing the poet. Onthe surface it seems as if she is trying to enthuse the pupils,although the pragmatics suggest that she is testing the poet, almostchallenging the poet. thus the second sentence, Who knows., backs upthe readers thoughts of the teacher. Intriguingly the poet hasmanipulated the language again by using a full stop to end a sentencethat would normally be a question.