Transcript Formal Letters

Rich, precise imagery
throughout. Visual,
aural, tactile imagery
combined
Sound effects help to create
atmosphere – onomatopoeia
‘A Disused
Shed in
Co.Wexford’
Poem has wide-ranging
historical and political
references. Mushrooms
symbolic of those who
suffered violence and
neglect – gives
oppressed a voice.
Invites reader to reflect
(ATT/AISB)
Strong sense of
place created
Each stanza (apart from
the first) is selfcontained and endstopped – long line
lengths. Form of poem
appropriate to
meditative tone and
complex historical
theme
‘Peruvian mines, worked
out and
adandoned...Indian
compound where the
wind dances/And a door
bangs with diminished
confidence’
Images of emptiness
from across several
continents – become
places where meaning
is possible
‘And in a disused shed in
Co.Wexford,...A thousand
mushrooms crowd to a
keyhole’
Poem zooms in on disused
shed and the mushroomssets scene for rest of poem
‘This is the one star in
their firmament...What
should they do but
desire?...They have
learnt patience and
silence’
Personification/
symbol
Described in series of
precise and rich images.
Spend days straining
towards the light –
sense of hopelessness
Symbolic function –
contrast in their
isolation & world outside
Onomatopoeia
‘they have been waiting
for us...since civil war
days,/Since the gravelcrunching, interminable
departure of the
expropriated mycologist
Symbolic function
explicitly clear- linked
to those abandoned in
the Northern Ireland
troubles. Hear the
departure clearly
Visual,aural,tactile
imagery
‘the pale flesh
flaking/Into the earth
that nourished it;...stale
air and rank moisture
‘Elbow room! Elbow
room!’
Powerful, sensuous
imagery evokes
suffering, death and
decay.
Echoes the fate of the Jewish people
Under Nazi regimes during WWII
Direct speech engages the reader
fully
Onomatopoeia- hard
consonant sounds
Discovery of the
isolated/abandoned
companions is vividly
captured
‘the cracking lock/And
creak of hinges;
Metaphor
‘magi,moonemen,/Pow
erdry prisoners of
the old regime,
Web-throated...’
Series of imaginative metaphors
captures the fragility and plight of the
mushrooms as they are discovered
Alliteration –
repeated ‘f’ echoes
their fear
‘only the ghost of a
scream/At the flash-bulb
firing squad with shows
there is life yet in their
feverish forms’
‘They are begging us,
you see, in their
wordless way, To do
something, to speak
on their behalf’
They are ready to
scream in fright when
the door is opened.
Reminds us of mass
suffering in the world
beyond
Poet acts as their voice – pleads to us
to hear them
Mushrooms have
symbolised the
multitudes of oppressed
– Jewish prionsers and
buried of Pompeii
Biblical tone
‘Lost people of Treblinka
and Pompeii...Let the god
not abandon us’
Pun on ‘Meter’
‘You with your light
meter and relaxed
itinerary’
Acknowledge the power of the
poet in speaking on behalf of th
powerless.
Adressess us all to remember and
continue acknoweldging