Refrain

his father. In that, we saw a sorrowful man who regrets lost time with his father. In “To a Wren on Calvary”, he angrily laments the cruel violence of the people he grew up with and how they had no regret or shame for what they did. “With arms outstretched, & eyes pecked out by birds, reclined, Fastened forever to scaffolds which gradually would cover An Empire’s hills & line its roads as far As anyone escaping in a cart could see, his swerving mind.” Here, the image of death that would never end is so sad and the reader feels pity for the poet who had to witness the violence that stayed with him for the rest of his life. The last poem to be discussed is completely different from the two previous poems. “Signs” is a reflective refrain that has the poet looking back on his life. It still has the depressing qualities that characterize his other works, but this poem offers more insight into how the poet coped with all the troubles in his life. The form of this poem is a contrast to the others as it has numbered verses. It is a very interesting poem because it seems to be about dying young, which is ironic because Larry Levis died when he was just forty-nine years old. The first few lines of the poem are very symbolic…

Ballad of Birmingham The Ballad of Birmingham is a highly emotive poem, written by Dudley Randall which is set in the highly divided and segregated city of Birmingham Alabama in 1963. The primary aim of this poem is to depict both the horror and suffering associated with race relations in Birmingham in 1963. This poem seeks to appeal to every single person regardless of race, gender, age, etc. The author does an excellent job in doing this by using a relationship in which we can all empathize…

The Ballad of the Landlord Langston Hughes' poem Ballad of the Landlord, composed and distributed in the 1940s, is without a doubt a dissent poem, normal in writing at the time. In the wake of perusing the poem through, it is entirely evident that the primary center of this piece is to stand up about society's racial bias, particularly with regards to implementing the law. Be that as it may, this poem could likewise be seen more comprehensively, as only a general social study managing…

“The Ballad of Birmingham” is a poem depicting the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963. Several differences arise when comparing the poem to the historical account of Claude Sitton, “Birmingham Bomb Kills 4 Negro girls in Church; Riots Flare; 2 Boys Slain” in the New York Times. The poem, “The Ballad of Birmingham”, written by Dudley Randall, changes events, details of the girls killed, information of their mothers, and the voice’s point of view to elicit empathy, involve the…

The first genre I picked is the Ballad which is a narrative song that came from New England having originally been brought to the Americas by immigrants from the British Isles. Someone who sings a ballad is basically a storyteller. The ballad is written as a poem but is intended to be sung. There are two important characteristics of ballads. The first is incremental repletion which is the repetition of one or more lines with small but significant variations that advance the action. The other is…

The trope of nostalgic and wistful people looking back on their teen years, the good years, approaches stereotype. Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending, on the surface, appears to employ the same stereotype of a wistful old man experiencing a bout of retrospection for his lost friend and the times he once had. The narrator of Carson McCullers’s “Ballad of the Sad Café” in The Ballad of the Sad Café works with the same forlorn recollection of when the town was more alive. Both narrators use two…

In Maya Angelou’s poem, “Alone”, discusses dark themes that are incredibly relevant to stereotypical poetry. This poem is very appropriately titled “Alone”, because it is about the speaker discussing lonesomeness. She discusses her own loneliness, the loneliness of others, then finally a call for action regarding how to not be lonely. The speaker reminisces about her lonely life using a very melancholy tone, but then shifts into a more blunt tone as the reality of loneliness arises. The…

set in the key of A major and has a 4/4 meter. Song form consists of an intro, four verse sections, each followed by a refrain, a bridge that follows only the second and third refrains, and an outro. The melody is undoubtedly bluesy, but further innovates on the blues form by adding a flatted III chord into the standard three chord progression of I, IV, V. It emphasizes this flat III chord – this serves to create dissonance and lends an interesting contrast to the main A major chord…

Is respect observed in the exercise of power or is it observed in the refrain of power. This two part question comes with both its pros and cons. While some believe the exercise of power creates respect, others hold firmly to the belief that refrain of power of a necessity creates respect. I believe that the refrain of power creates respect. The invasion of Iraq in 2001 at the order of president Bush as a response to the attack of the twin towers in New York city was a display of the power of…

and infinitely more in keeping the intended tone (melancholy). An interesting fact about “The Raven” is how each aspect of this poem is studied by Poe. He analyzes the stanzas, the sound, the mode of bringing together the lover and the raven. Here, it show the importance of having the denouement in mind for the choice of context. Analyzing the Raven, we see that it is not to extent. In fact, it has more or less a hundred lines. As seen before, in order to get a unity in a poem, it must not be…