Lily Brett And Trish Mccallister: Poetry Analysis

Poets express their concerns about the Nazis and Jews through the use of poetic devices in order to create a response in the reader. The poets, Lily Brett and Trish McCallister, crafted these poems to express the poor living conditions, the barbaric nature of the Nazis and the suffering Jews inside the camps. Through the use of poetic devices such as imagery, irony, repetition, personification and onomatopoeia, both poets are able to portray their concerns to the reader about the Holocaust. Through the use of poetic techniques, the reader is left feeling antagonised and empathetic.

The poems Another Selection and Arbeit Macht Freit, both written by Lily Brett, convey the inhumane living conditions that the Jews had to endure during their imprisonment. …show more content…
In Overload, Brett describes how the deceased Jewish bodies were disrespected by the Nazis as they were scorched in pits. The imagery in the line ‘burning for five hours’ conveys how disgustingly the Nazis disposed of the burdening bodies. This helps the reader to visualise how distressing it was for the Jews to have seen their family’s bodies being burned. Through Brett’s use of onomatopoeia in the line, ‘hissing, spitting, glistening’ it allows the reader to perceive the sounds of the burning ‘black bodies’ in the fire pit. The irony of the ‘best burning arrangement’ helps Brett to convey the harsh tone of the poem and it allows the reader to understand how immoral the Nazis were, which compels the reader to feel traumatised. Through the poetic devices that Lily Brett uses in Overload, she conveys the reprehensible acts of the Nazis, which leaves the readers distressed. In Brett’s poem Children II, she describes how the sadistic Nazis murdered children from the view of the mothers and other Jewish children. Through her use of imagery in the line ‘snapping their backs’ Brett is able to convey the malicious acts of the Nazis, which helps the reader feel the unbearable sadness towards the Jewish children. The onomatopoeia of the children as they are ‘flung into the air’ conveys how the Nazis could not care less …show more content…
Lily Brett’s poem Sport, conveys the torturous treatment that Jews suffered as they entertained the Nazis. Her use of a metaphor in the line ‘ragged pack of eager gymnasts’ helps the reader to visualise how drained the Jews were after being mocked for ‘hours’. The imagery in the line ‘run on the spot, drop to the ground, hop like frogs, then run again’ helps to highlight the cruelty as the reader can visualise the exhausted Jews. Brett uses irony to describe the Jews as ‘eager gymnasts’ as they were threatened to participate in the ‘daily drill’; this makes the reader feel disgusted, as they understand how the Jews were threatened with their lives to participate in this ‘sport’. The use of these techniques help Lily Brett to portray her concerns about the Jews’ treatment by highlighting the torture and mistreatment by the Nazis which leaves a clearer image in the readers mind. In Trish McCallister’s poem The Dream, she portrays a flashback versus current life through the use of poetic techniques, as she compares her life to her mothers past. The metaphor in the line ‘fear is my constant companion’ helps convey how tragic her mothers life was, constantly surrounded by fear, which makes the reader feel sympathetic. McCallister’s use of imagery in the line ‘wake up with the sun’ helps to portray how lucky she is to wake up