Several poems in the anthology explore different ideas of death and loss. Explore these themes referring to three poems in detail and three others from your wider knowledge.
The themes of death, loss, and grief are all explored throughout many poems and through different concepts. Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘War Photographer’, Achebe’s ‘Mother in a refugee camp’ all portray these themes through the horrors of war. Similarly to ‘Prayer before birth’ by Louis MacNeice also refers to war, but instead its more relating to hope that the narrator, who is the unborn child, wont experience these horrific events, as the unborn baby pleads to God and seeks for forgiveness as well as pleads for protection from tyrants. In contrast, ‘Piano’ by D.H Lawrence and ‘Poem at thirty-Nine’ by Alice walker both explores the grief following the death of a partner or a relative is explored. In ‘Poem at thirty nine’, the author is grieving over her father who meant the world to her and how she regrets that she didn’t get enough time to spend with him and she speaks of how proud he would be now if he were to see her successes. In ‘Piano’ by D.H Lawrence, the poet mainly explores the memories of his childhood and of his mother who used to play the piano. However on the other hand, there’s the poem “Remember” by Christina Rossetti which is a Petrarchan sonnet, a fourteen line sonnet written in iambic pentameter. The writer is afraid to be forgotten by her lover and can’t accept the reality of death which is inventible for every human.
Both poems ‘A mother in a refugee camp’ and ‘Prayer before birth’ emphasize the themes of death and loss through the impacts of the harsh war and actions upon others innocence. To start off, ‘A mother in a refugee camp’, Achebe uses the first line, “no Madonna and child “, here Achebe portrays a compassionate mother as the child is unnamed, therefore making the child universal. Also it creates a religious iconic image of The Virgin Mary and Jesus. Furthermore, Achebe may be referring to the mother being a saint as she holds on to her child with such “tenderness”. Her gentle touch and soft love is emphasized with the gentle soft sibilance. As we read furthermore, we acknowledge her child has died as a result of war. Achebe induces a disturbing image of the dead child through the description of ‘the rustle-colored hair left on his skull’. The use of the fragile cartilage ‘skull’ has connotations of death. It also emphasizes the malnutrition that occurs to adults and children during a time of war. In addition, the son’s ‘rust-coloured hair’, brings to mind an image of something decaying. The color red symbolizes blood and death which clearly links to the subject of the horrors of war. Achebe ends the poem by the use of the descriptive adjectives ‘tiny grave’. Here again there are connotations of death with the word ‘grave’. To add on, the adjective ‘tiny’ emphasizes how the child is dying and it also highlights how inhuman and unnatural it is for a...
