Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
POEMS OF THE DECADE - Coggle Diagram
POEMS OF THE DECADE
EAT ME
SHORT SUMMARY: A dramatic monologue by a woman controlled and force-fed by her partner. Explores fetishisation, power, and rebellion. Ends with the speaker rolling on top of him, killing him — reversing the power dynamic.
THEMES: power & dominance, body politics, control & rebellion, gendered violence
KEY QUOTES:
“I like big girls, soft girls…” — male gaze, objectification
-
-
COMPARISON LINKS:
Power/control → The Deliverer, The Lammas Hireling
Gendered violence → Giuseppe, Chainsaw Versus The Pampas Grass
Identity & body → Material, An Easy Passage
EFFECTS
SHORT SUMMARY: A son reflects on his mother’s death while remembering her domestic labour and their distant relationship. Poem explores regret and generational expectations.
THEMES: family relationships, regret & guilt, memory, gender roles
COMPARISON LINKS:
Family + guilt → Out of the Bag, On Her Blindness
Memory → Material, An Easy Passage
-
MATERIAL
SHORT SUMMARY: Mother’s handkerchief symbolises old-fashioned values; speaker reflects on generational change, consumerism, and parental absence.
THEMES: nostalgia, motherhood, changing culture, identiry
COMPARISON LINKS:
Nostalgia → The Furthest Distances I’ve Travelled, An Easy Passage
Mother–child → Effects, On Her Blindness
-
A MINOR ROLE
SHORT SUMMARY: Illness portrayed as a performance; the speaker feels the pressure to appear “fine” while suffering privately. Explores identity under constraint.
THEMES: illness & identity, performance / masks, isolation
COMPARISON LINKS:
-
Identity performance → An Easy Passage, The Gun
-
ON HER BLINDNESS
SHORT SUMMARY: A son describes his mother’s blindness with honesty rather than euphemism. Ends with a peaceful image of acceptance before death.
THEMES: family, illness, truth & euphemism, dignity
COMPARISON LINKS:
-
Family reflection → Effects, Material
-
THE FURTHEST DISTANCES
SHORT SUMMARY: Reflects on youth, freedom, and the difference between physical travel and emotional distance. Matures into understanding intimacy.
THEMES: journey / self-discovery, youth vs adulthood, memory
COMPARISON LINKS:
-
Identity → The Gun, History
KEY QUOTES:
“Like many folk, I travelled” — universality
-
-
THE GUN
SHORT SUMMARY: A gun enters a domestic space and transforms it. Mixes glamour, fear, excitement. Metaphor for power, liberation, and potential violence.
THEMES: violence, power, temptation, gender
COMPARISON LINKS:
Violence → Out of the Bag, Giuseppe
Power → Eat Me, Chainsaw vs Pampas Grass
-
GIUSEPPE
SHORT SUMMARY: During WWII, villagers kill and eat a mermaid. A confession poem exploring complicity, guilt, and human cruelty.
THEMES: violence & guilt, war, dehumanisation, complicity
COMPARISON LINKS:
War → The Deliverer, History
Guilt → Effects, On Her Blindness
-
-
AN EASY PASSAGE
SHORT SUMMARY: A girl climbing into her house from the window. Celebrates the moment between childhood and adulthood; fleetingness of youth.
THEMES: adolescence, identity formation, time / transience
-
-
THE DELIVERER
SHORT SUMMARY: Set in India/Hollywood. Explores female infanticide, adoption, global inequality, gendered violence.
THEMES: gender, violence, brutality of systems, inequality
COMPARISON LINKS:
Gender violence → Eat Me, Giuseppe
-
-