SSLC English Exam 2021: Poems in out of Focus Area - Notes of Appreciation

 

Blowin’ in the Wind   ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’ is a song by the American singer and song writer Bob Dylan. It is considered to be a protest song against human rights violations. The song was an anthem of the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. War and violence destroy peaceful life; human rights violations and injustice prevail everywhere. People should unite against the injustices, open their eyes and ears to hear and see the sufferings of their  fellow beings and fight for their rights.  These are the messages and theme of this song.  The poet asks “how many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?” That means how much trouble a man should suffer in his life before he is recognized as a human being.  He asks again how many seas a white dove must sail before it finds a peaceful place to sleep. How many times the cannon balls must fly before they are banned forever?  White doves are symbol of peace, and banning cannon balls means ending wars and violence. But no peaceful place without war and violence is found anywhere in this world. The oppressive rulers are as huge and powerful as mountains. But they cannot exist for long before the more powerful seas of people’s protests.  No ruler can keep the people of a nation under slavery for ever. No one can pretend for a long time that he does not see or hear the sufferings and cries of the oppressed people. Everyone should have eyes to see the sky - the symbol of freedom - and ears to hear people cry in pain.  The poet finally asks how many people should die before we realize that too many have died. All these questions are Rhetorical questions.  The poet says that the answers to them are known to all and are blowing in the wind repeating the lines “the answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind, the answer is blowin’ in the wind”. This kind of repetition of lines is the best example the poetic device, Refrain.  The oppressive rulers are compared to mountains and people’s protest to seas. These comparisons are examples of Metaphor. There are many examples of Alliterations in the song as in “How many roads must a man…”. There is an Auditory Image in the expression “…people cry?” ‘White dove’, ‘cannon balls’, ‘mountain’, ‘sea’ etc. can be seen as Visual Images.

Poetry – A Note of Appreciation The poem ‘Poetry’ is written by the very famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. The  ecstatic feeling that the poet experienced when he was embraced by the poetic creativity is celebrated in the poem. And this is the theme of the poem as well. This poem is composed in the Free Verse style, so that the poem does not have a consistent stanza system, metric pattern and rhyme scheme. There are three stages of the poet’s experiences depicted in this poem – the period when he wished to become a poet, when poetry arrived and touched him and after he composed his first faint lines. The poet says that the poetry arrived in search of him and touched him. But he does not know where it came from when and how. He was a man without a face before the arrival of poetry. When it touched him he became like a dumb and blind person, but he felt something started in his soul. He could not name exactly what it was – it was something like fever (poetic passion)  or forgotten wings (nameless emotions or inborn but unknown abilities) Deciphering that poetic passion or fire, he wrote his first lines. The lines seemed faint and substance-free, pure nonsense or pure wisdom of someone who knew nothing. When he wrote his lines he could suddenly saw the heavens opened in front of him. He could see everything in the universe from planets to palpitating plantations. Though he was an infinitesimal being and similarity of ignorance, he could enjoy the beauty of the starry sky and feel himself to be a part of the abyss. He could travel with the stars and his heart became as free as the wind! This poem is in the Free Verse style. Poetry “arrived in search of me”… “it touched me” is an example of Personification. The poet doubts whether poetry came from ‘winter’ or a ‘river’.‘Winter’ indicates a ‘frozen state’ and ‘River’ a ‘flowing state’ and thus the poet creates the figure of speech Contrast. Expressions like ‘not voices’, ‘nor silence’ ‘pure nonsense’, ‘pure wisdom’, ‘from the others or returning alone’ are also examples of Contrast. There are many instances of Alliteration such as ‘Something Started in my Soul’, ‘fever or forgotten’, ‘palpitating plantations’, ‘fire and flowers etc. The poem is rich with various images.

Mother to Son The poem ‘Mother to Son’ is written by the very well-know American poet and social activist Langston Hughes. He was one of the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance, a movement which paved the way for the social and intellectual enlightenment of the Negro community.  This is a dramatic monologue composed in Free Verse style. In this monologue poem, the speaker is the mother and the son is a passive listener. The tone of the poem is didactic – that is advising and encouraging the son to face the difficulties of life.  The mother is an Afro-American woman and appears to be very poor and illiterate. The mother talks to her son about her miserable life experiences. She compares her life to a crystal stair and says that her life has never been luxurious, comfortable or beautiful as a crystal stair. Her stair of life is full of tacks, splinters and is made up of torn-up boards, which means that her life is difficult, sorrowful and poverty-stricken. Her struggles for existence have never been easy. Her life has always been painful and bare of all comforts. While climbing the life’s stairs, very rarely only she reaches a landing place – gets a comfortable time. Most often she has to turn corners and sometimes she reaches in complete darkness without any light. She means that sometimes she reaches completely in hopeless and helpless situations without having anyone to help. But even in her old age, she has never given up hopes or hard work. She wants her son also to work hard and face challenges in life boldly.  The mother advises her son not to turn back or sit down or fall down on the steps of the life’s stairs. She also encourages him to face the difficulties and to succeed in life looking at her and learning lessons from her life. The poem is in Free Verse so that it has no consistent stanza system, no rhyme-scheme or no metric pattern (consistency in line-length).The life of the mother is compared to a crystal stair and the journey of life is compared to climbing the steps. Thus the figure of speech the extended metaphor is very aptly used in the poem. The language of the poem is an Afro-American dialect, which depicts the mother’s backwardness, poverty and illiteracy.  Examples of Alliteration can be seen in the line “Don’t you set down on the steps”. Also, there is an example of Assonance in the line “So boy don’t you turn back” where the vowel sound /o/ is repeated.  Examples of Anaphora can also be seen in the poem, by which the word ‘And’ is repeated consecutively at the beginning of several lines.