The Pylons is a poem written in five quatrains of free verse, and describes the conflict between country and city. The titular object, pylons are a metaphor for technology, which the poetic voice believes to threaten to bring destruction upon nature and country.
The concrete poem structures the stanzas in a way that, along with the black font, resemble pylons. There is no regular meter but the first and last line of each stanza sometimes end with full rhyme and sometimes pararhyme. The poet uses enjambment and caesuras liberally. The unconventional structure causes the poem to be chaotic and unpredictable, similar to the way the poet characterises technology.
The first stanza is an ekphrasis of the “crumbling” country. The second stanza brings …show more content…
The poet describes the country as “crumbling” and “hidden,” and therefore aged and unobtrusive. As a “secret of these hills,” it is in harmony with nature.
As an antithesis to the country, the pylons are not “of these hills” but “over” them. Whereas the cottages are “of that stone made,” which the poet describes in passive voice and thus almost as if self-made, neatly blend into mother nature; a formless, unnamed “they” built the pylon, which manifest as a hideous product of human civilisation. They are “black,” in contrast with nature’s array of “gilt” and “green.” The poet personifies them as “nude giant girls that have no secret,” a grotesque, unsubtle, and oxymoronic presence that exudes wrongness.
The pylons are unappealing yet important as the “pillars” of the modern city. The poet begrudgingly admits in the fourth stanza that they are “Like the whips of anger / With lightning danger” and therefore comparable to Zeus, and powerful by divine and mythical proportions. The fourth stanza quickens in pace through a combination of internal and end rhyme, alliteration of airy “w” and assonance of the short vowel “i,” hence mirrors the unstoppable force of technological development and the irrevocability of its …show more content…
In the final stanza, the poet evokes the dream of modernity, of cities. But as the poet describes nature as the “emerald country,” in reference to its green colour, a metaphor for the price mankind has to pay for modernisation, and a reminder that this dream is as empty and full of deception as the magic of technology in Oz. The fact that it is “emerald country” instead of the “Emerald City” in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz implies the wrongness of technology’s existence in the country. The “emerald country” of nature is “ours” – the poet introduces the first-person perspective, which suggests that all this is personal, and that the fate of nature is intimately related to the reader’s actions. The poem ends with the powerful imagery of clouds, the last hint of nature in the city, exposing their feminine and vulnerable “swan-white neck” for slaughter. Humans may yet pursue technological development, but only at the expense of obliterating every bit of goodness nature has to
The concrete poem structures the stanzas in a way that, along with the black font, resemble pylons. There is no regular meter but the first and last line of each stanza sometimes end with full rhyme and sometimes pararhyme. The poet uses enjambment and caesuras liberally. The unconventional structure causes the poem to be chaotic and unpredictable, similar to the way the poet characterises technology.
The first stanza is an ekphrasis of the “crumbling” country. The second stanza brings …show more content…
The poet describes the country as “crumbling” and “hidden,” and therefore aged and unobtrusive. As a “secret of these hills,” it is in harmony with nature.
As an antithesis to the country, the pylons are not “of these hills” but “over” them. Whereas the cottages are “of that stone made,” which the poet describes in passive voice and thus almost as if self-made, neatly blend into mother nature; a formless, unnamed “they” built the pylon, which manifest as a hideous product of human civilisation. They are “black,” in contrast with nature’s array of “gilt” and “green.” The poet personifies them as “nude giant girls that have no secret,” a grotesque, unsubtle, and oxymoronic presence that exudes wrongness.
The pylons are unappealing yet important as the “pillars” of the modern city. The poet begrudgingly admits in the fourth stanza that they are “Like the whips of anger / With lightning danger” and therefore comparable to Zeus, and powerful by divine and mythical proportions. The fourth stanza quickens in pace through a combination of internal and end rhyme, alliteration of airy “w” and assonance of the short vowel “i,” hence mirrors the unstoppable force of technological development and the irrevocability of its …show more content…
In the final stanza, the poet evokes the dream of modernity, of cities. But as the poet describes nature as the “emerald country,” in reference to its green colour, a metaphor for the price mankind has to pay for modernisation, and a reminder that this dream is as empty and full of deception as the magic of technology in Oz. The fact that it is “emerald country” instead of the “Emerald City” in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz implies the wrongness of technology’s existence in the country. The “emerald country” of nature is “ours” – the poet introduces the first-person perspective, which suggests that all this is personal, and that the fate of nature is intimately related to the reader’s actions. The poem ends with the powerful imagery of clouds, the last hint of nature in the city, exposing their feminine and vulnerable “swan-white neck” for slaughter. Humans may yet pursue technological development, but only at the expense of obliterating every bit of goodness nature has to