Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Paul Durcan
- Nessa
- The delights and dangers of falling in love.
- "And I very nearly drowned"
- Personal poem about the first time Durcan met his wife
- "With Nessa"
- She's in control from the beginning
- "She took me by her index finger /
And dropped me in her well"
- "Would you care to swim?
she said to me."
- Love is thrilling, exciting, dangerous, uncertain.
- "And that was a whirlpool, that was a whirlpool"
- Wonders will it last. But we
know it ends happily.
- "Will you stay with me on the rocks?"
- Wife Smashed Television Gets Jail
- Dramatic title, tabloid-like, humorous.
- "We got there before the finish of Kojak"
- Tv cannot be used as a positive influence on family life,
the poem shows the society thinking the opposite.
- "the basic unit of society"
- Values of family being lost - American
culture consuming our culture.
- "dame"
- The whole poem is ironic, giving it dark humour.
- "peaceably watching Kojak"
- Set in Ireland 1970's, we know this because
of several references to Irish culture.
- "Justice O'Brádaigh"
- "Queen Maeve"
- The Girl with the Keys to Pearse's Cottage
- Irish Cullture - emigration
- Ironic, that the tour guide of Pearse's cottage must emigrate.
This is the oppsoite of Pearse's dream for Ireland.
- "She had no choice but to leave her home"
- No future for the youth
- Irish identity, belonging, instability.
- Ordinary everyday people were effected.
- "From your Connemara postman's
daughter's proudly mortal face."
- Lack of interest in Pearse's cottage
- lack of interest in the countries
ambitions.
- Cáit Kilann (the girl) is the symbol of the emigration and loss.
- "O Cáit Kilann, O Cáit Kilann"
- Alliteration
- "Photographs of the passionate and pale Pearse."
- Parents
- Relationship between parents and offspring.
- "In her sleep she is calling out to them /
Father, Father / Mother, Mother"
- Parents can't control the future of their children.
- "But they cannot hear her"
- Is the child having a nightmare? Or is it their future.
In both the parents are unable to help him/her.
- Disturbing images, show fear, anxiety, nervousness, worry.
- "Through the night, stranded, they stare /
At the drowned, drowned face of the child."
- "As if locked out of their own homes"
- Metaphor of sea used to represent
possible dangers or nightmares.
- "She is under the sea / And they are above the sea"
- Sport
- Explores father and son's relationship
- Personal poem about Durcan's time in a mental hospital.
- "I was a patient"
- We feel sorry for Durcan as
he tries to impress his father.
Anxiety to let him down.
- "I was fearful I would let down /
Not only my team but you"
- Constantly looking for approval.
- "Seldom if ever again in your eyes /
Was I to rise to these heights"
- Father reacts positively for first time - need to be praised..
- "Well played, son"
- Durcan is proud - but there is a sad
reality, he is in a mental hospital because
of his family... his father used to beat him.
- "In your eyes I had achieved something at last"
- "The Grangegorman Mental Hospital team"
- The Arnolfini Marriage
- Written about the famous Jan Van Eyck painting. A poem
written in response to a painting is known as a Ekphrasis.
- "We are the Arnolfinis.
- "Do not think you may invade /
Our privacy because you may not"
- Shows idealism of marriage
- Unity / Harmony / One
- "The two halves of a coconut."