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Poetry anthology - Coggle Diagram

- - - - giving birth
      - internal for mother having to let her child go, whilst protecting her
      - between mother & daughter
    - - 20th century
      - autobiographical
      - Welsh
    - - "Words, coloured the clean squares // With the wild, tender circles"
        
        The synesthesia blends and blurs the sense in the metaphor
        
        also a contrast in the box-like room to the softness of the circles
        
        The voice's cries through labour juxtapose with the cold clinical environment of the hospital
      - "With your straight, strong long // Brown hair and your rosy, // Defiant glare
        
        list of adjectives with assonance to reveal her combined frustration with admiration of her daughter
        
        references how the now teenage Catrin is becoming increasingly powerful & strong-willed as well as aware of what she wants and how to get it
        
        shift in time frame
      - "Red rope of love"
        
        adjective red is the foreground of the enjambment
        
        red has lots of contrasting connotations: love, hate, anger, passion, thus reflecting the nature of a mother daughter relationship
        
        alliterative extended metaphor
        
        alluding to the umbilical cord
    - - monosyllables at end
      - lots of enjambment & caesura
      - in free verse
  - - - between the speaker and her cousin Kate, who have both been involved romantically & sexually with a Lord
    - - patriarchy
      - conservatively religious & moralistic
      - volunteered at a women's shelter for fallen women (sex before marriage
      - women had to be submissive but also satisfy men
      - 19th century (victorian)
    - - "shameless shameful life"
        
        oxymoron contrasts the antithetical, sibilant adjectives
        
        It also implies a differing opinion on the speaker's view on the relationship with the Lord (shameless) compared with societies view (shameful)
        
        oxymoronic language mirrors how she is confused and conflicted she is / was about the situation
      - "I would have spit into his face // And not have taken his hand"
        
        the speaker clearly regrets that she allowed herself to love and care for the lord and go into his bed
        
        The speaker wants Kate to know that the only difference between them is that the Lord fell for the speaker first then Kate
        
        violent visceral verb "spit" & the decisive placement of the line at the end of the stanza shows the speaker's moral judgement on the betrayal of her cousin
      - "you had the stronger wing"
        
        this really emphasises her jealous emotions towards her cousin
        
        throughout the poem she is refereed to as wolf-like animals "I sit and howl" but this line contrasts her now outcast status in society
        
        the use of avian imagery at this point to suggests that her cousin was able to "fly" higher socially because of her marriage
        
        It also demonstrates how powerless she feels in this situation
    - - dramatic monologue (ballad)
      - octaves
      - bitter tone
      - iambic meter contrasts dark theme
  - - - between friend and foe
    - - spiritual visionary
      - romantic poet
      - artist
      - believed childhood is pure and innocent
      - 18th century
    - - "And I water'd it in fears // Night and morning with my tears"
        
        He deliberately cultivates the growing of the tree (anger) with tears and frustration whilst refusing to communicate hid feelings
        
        The speaker accidentally helps anger and resentment grow
        
        The speaker intentionally helps his anger & resentment grow
        
        His tears are the ones of sorrow because of his worries about his relationship with his enemy
      - "I was angry with my friend ; //I told my wrath, my wrath did end"
        
        but also if feelings aren't communicated friendships could come to an end
        
        friendship is necessary for anger to finally subside
        
        The rhyme between "friend" and "end" is not only referring to the fact that perhaps it's easier for anger to end when it comes to friends
      - "And it grew both day and night // Till it bore an apple bright"
        
        apples are a common fruit and anger and resentment are common feeling
        
        apple is an allusion to the biblical story of Adam & Eve
        
        The speaker is likened to the serpent tempting his enemy
        
        apple is symbolic of growing & ripening anger
    - - extended metaphor
      - rhyming couplets
      - iambic tetrameter
      - quatrains
      - didactic tone
- - - - racist labels that people use for those who are mixed race. Rebellion of language from non-standard English (Caribbean creole dialect & heritage)
    - - 20-21th century
      - own personal experience w/ racism
      - born in Guyana 1949 (Guianese dad, Portugese mum)
      - often targets subjects of derogatory language in poetry
      - dub poet
    - - "half" // "whole"
        
        this combines to create an accusatory & confrontational yet humorous tone
        
        the repetition of "whole" towards the end of the poem contrasts with "half"
        
        repetition of the adverb half forces the reader to confront the absurdity of the notion mixed race people are only half
        
        This serves to conclude that the speaker is no less a person than the listener
      - "an mix a black key wid a white key" // "half caste symphony"
        
        contrasting, like a lot of things throughout the poem
        
        Auditory imagery "half caste symphony" depicts the speaker's identity in a beautiful way, highlighting the incorrectness of the previously used dissonant terms
        
        sensory imagery clearly depicts the two-sided nature of the beautiful things in society
      - "Explain yuself"
        
        imperative sentence
        
        Guyanese / non-standard English dialect of the pronoun "yuself" serves to demand the listener accounts for their racist attitudes towards the mixed race speaker
        
        Begins with an insincere apology, establishing a sarcastic tone
        
        refrain throughout the poem
    - - first stanza is three lines to emphatically introduce the poem
      - creole language
      - the middle stanzas are significantly longer showing a passive stream of consciousness from Agard
  - - - class conflict - prejudice & discrimination
    - - published 1979 (20th century)
      - "Voices" published working class writers
      - contributor to a poetry magazine "Voices"
      - her first hand experience with prejudice
      - housewife from Liverpool
    - - "soft lilly-white with perfume and oil" , "bog"
        
        positive auditory & tactile imagery vs humorous, coarse descriptions of the harsh realities
        
        shows the expectation that middle / upper class women should be clean & smell fresh and not be involved in "dirty work"
        
        juxtaposition
      - "Why do you care what class I'm from?"
        
        By referring to herself by her class at the end of the poem she is showing an act of reclaiming her title
        
        The exclamatory emphasis the defiant tone the speaker has maintained throughout the rest of the poem
        
        blatant in her frustration and anger that she is repeatedly labelled as a result of her class
      - " 'Olly in me mouth" & "corpy"
        
        helps highlight her point that lower classes are seen as less intelligent
        
        informal term for the council housing shows her Liverpudlian roots
        
        use of colloquial, informal language
    - - confrontational / accusatory tone
      - shows pride in linguistic heritage
      - first person
      - free verse
      - monologue
  - - - harmful effects of stereotypes on poc. Linguistic rebellion from use of non-standard English against prejudices white culture has placed on him
    - - writes about own experience of racism in 20th century
      - uses Caribbean dialect & non-standard English
      - rejected and OBE (anti-empire)
      - linguistic rebellion through assertion of the legitamacy of his cultural & linguistic heritage
      - from birmingham
    - - "Now I am branded athletic" "academic" "pigeon hole"
        
        and on the flip side less intelligent and more prone to criminality
        
        The speaker argues he has been "pigeon holed" according to these stereotypes and that his true potential has been overlooked
        
        discusses how he is labelled athletic by his teachers, conforming to racist stereotypes that black people are naturally muscial, rhythmic and athletic
        
        the aggressive verb "branded" links back to the times of slavery where black people would be physically branded as property
      - "Sum of me best friends are white"
        
        The fact that Zephania is able to end the poem on such a tone after referencing some dark and heavy experiences shows his resilience
        
        The speaker is taking the upper hand over those he is addressing and showing how any racial divide is not his fault
        
        Ends on a humorous, sarcastic tone, playing on the problimatic statement that "I can't be racist - I have black friends"
      - "I (Black is) am not de problem"
        
        the speaker won't make excuses for his racial identity and those who discriminate against it
        
        A climactic shift in tone at the end of the poem to "Black is not de problem", explaining how being black isn't an issue (contrary to media portrayals). showing that he can rise above the discrimination he faced
        
        a refrain repeated several times throughout the first stanza to reaffirm that racists are the problem not those subjected to it
    - - ABCB rhyme scheme
      - two stanzas for a sense of divide
      - angry, defiant, accusatory tone
      - shift in tone from the first to the second stanza. From communicating positivity to pondering the effects of racial abuse
      - DUB poem (written as spoken)