Edith Sitwell's Heart and Mind

Edith Sitwell's poetry is filled with her own interpretations of experience. Concepts of time, consciousness and love are constant throughout her poems; also, as a result of her unhappy childhood, her work is known for being ambitious and experimental. She wrote war poetry, gaining initial fame through her work, "Still falls the rain". Many of her recurring themes are seen in her poem, Heart and Mind - through the use of vivid description, metaphors and comparisons, we are given insight between the endless feud of the heart and mind, presented through countless comparisons, such as the moon and the sun, and a lion and his lioness.

The first stanza opens with a powerful conversation between the lion and the lioness. He reminds her to remember their love, even after death, as seen in the simile: "No more a raging fire like the heat of the Sun". The use of "no more" beside a comparison as loaded as "the heat of the Sun", signifies a time in which the lioness will be no longer as alive and as vibrant as in youth, and that is the result of old age. He wants her to remember the things that made her so powerful ("remember still the flowering... bright paws.") Such as things like the vigor of blood and bone, and the fluidity of her muscles. The simile, "the rippling of bright muscles like a sea" can allude to the sheer power of the sea when in motion, just like the lioness when hunting; "remember the rose prickles of bright paws" presents the reader with a contrasting description, because while roses are a show of innocence and purity, the idea of paws and the power that these paws contain, are quite the opposite. The concluding line of the first stanza - "though we shall... bone are one"- sets the stage for the rest of the poem, showing the similarity of both the heart to the Sun - passionate, and ablaze, - and the moon to the bone - pensive and cold - as well as the fact that they are polar opposites, and as long as they remain opposites, the lion and his lioness will never be able to be together. This shows the concept of Love present in Liz's work.

Through repetition, the second stanza opens with a "said", signifying conversation. Here, the focus is on a skeleton lying on the sands of time, as a result of age and of time itself. He speaks of a "great gold planet", and through comparison, we are able to see the true greatness of said planet, as he says it is "more powerful than the tawny body of a lion", making the lion pale in comparison, despite the fact that the lions were depicted so powerfully in the first stanza. The skeleton relates himself to both Hercules and Samson, Greek/bible heroes who were slayers of lions but were unable to defeat time, and he makes mention of the sea, and its strength - "strong as the pillars of the sea"-, alluding to the first stanza His downfall was similar to the likes of the tawny lion, being consumed by the "flames of heart", which could mean love or lustful desires - here the mind is presented as a "foolish wind", just fueling the flames of desire, despite the fact that the mind and heart are usually placed apart.

The last stanza has the same repetitive beginning, "said" but this time, we receive the perspective of the Sun and moon themselves, after all the constant references in the span of the poem. "When you are... in a dark wood" shows the sign of old age or death, where the moon is reduced to a lonely, shriveling crone, implying a later time, in which there will be nobody in the dark sky with her, not the stars of galaxies, just her in solitude; and the sun, dead in the darkness. They are both placed in opposite environments to add a haunting effect. The sun reminds his star-crossed lover of one thing: that even if time ends, the two fires, one of the heart and of the mind, will never burn as one, meaning that there will never be a time where they agree, or assure a balance - "that never til... mind be one."

With five stanzas of irregular lines and no rhyming scheme, the readers are invited into a dramatic conversation between a Lion and his Lioness, a skeleton and the Sun and the Moon. We see into their youth, love that can never be and death and decay, all through comparisons, contrasting images and vibrant usage of colours.

Liz Lochhead and her grandmother knitting

Linda Lochhead is a Scottish writer and a critic; along with this title, she is also well-known for being the powerful and distinctful voice of the female community in Scotland. She is instrumental in making space for women in a male-dominated society. While her poem, For my grandmother knitting, exhibits the use of a female protagonist, it doesn't just stop there; it reaches wider, not just to genders but to age itself. Through the use of techniques such as personification, repetition, sibilance and assonance, this poem touches up on concepts such as old age and the feeling of uselessness.

The first stanza introduces the grandmother and her situation through the use of the alliterative and personified sentence: "there is no need they say but the needles still move". This sentence is repeated often, although rephrased, throughout the poem; the grandmother's rebellion, or, more like, her inability to stop. Her hands still contain the fluid movement she had when she was still the fisher-girl with "sure and skillful hands", so it is not easy to stop something she had grown used to in her past. The use of the description "their rhythms in the workings of your hands" contributes to this, showing how the needles and her hands are as one, in harmonious synchrony therefore it is not easy to just stop, or stay still.

The juxtaposition present in the second stanza does a lot to fuel the imagination of the reader, as they are given a view of contrasting times. "You are old now... Not so good" establishes the beginning of deterioration that comes with old age, especially towards the grasp of things; this is contrasted by the phrase, "but master of your moments then" - through this, the reader is invited into a window of the past, wherein she was sure of herself, of everything that she did. Through assonance in the sentence, "you slit the still-ticking quick silver fish", the image of the young fisher-girl, "deft and swift", remains in the reader's head long after the poem is finished. The brief line, "hard work it was too of necessity" shows that despite the difficulty, it was necessary for survival; additionally, it shows that she regards both knitting and the fishing for survival to be on the same level of necessity - this may be because, now, she almost has no use, in contrast to her in her youth. It may be seen as a necessity because the constant movement of her hands makes her feel useful, or brings her youth, and at this age, feeling useful is her survival.

Through the third stanza, the grandmother's youth is reminisced, with the recurring presence of her hands as the subject, despite changing life roles, as seen through the anaphoric phrase "once the hands of" - her hands, constantly used to support and fend for the lives of six children and a husband out of necessity. She was the helping hand, and this is exemplified in the sibilant phrase, "scrapped and slaved, slapped sometimes" leaving a lasting image in the readers head of the life that she had to experience and the life she lived before she was reduced to just... A grandmother. Once again, the sentence "but now they... Needles move" is added, to contradict and add to the overwhelming feeling of uselessness, in both the third stanza and the fourth.

The fourth stanza shows the distance between the generations, and it is shown how the elderly are treated here. "Gran you do too much" implies that they think she is unable to do the simple task of knitting, although they don't intend to contribute to her sense of uselessness, they don't understand that through the abundance of knitting, she feels like she was contributing, as seen through, "there's no necessity." The following stanzas cover the sheer brutality of aging, in descriptions such as, "painful hands big on shrunken hands" and "swollen jointed. Red. Arthritic. Old." A painful comparison to her hands during youth. The use of the words, "swollen-jointed. Red. Arthritic. Old" may not only be how she sees herself, but how others may see her. Despite this, the needles still move with ease. The contrast seen through the usage of "remembered" as well as "forgotten" reminds the reader that despite the pains of old age and the impending presence of useless, her haves have traces of her vigor; her life was preserved through her hands. In a way, it was as if she refuses to stop, unconsciously. Her hands knew their worth, and so they wouldn't stop, finding their own way to remain in constant motion.

The poem is divided into five stanzas, in which the initial four are written as one long sentence each. The evident lack of any rhyming makes it like a proper story, and the chronological order contributes to this. The poem uses repetition of key phrases and words to push the readers to consider the way they are treating their own elderly loved ones, and although it is in second person, we are able to get insight on the perspectives of the characters, such as the grandmother and the children.

Patricia Beer and The Lost Woman

Patricia Beer was an English poet, as well as a critic. Along with this, she was known as a 'new romantic' poet, and established her style with key subjects and themes of good and evil, love and the passing of time; one subject that is constantly present in many of her works is the subject of death, specifically how the dead haunt the living. This is presented in her poem, The Lost Woman, using simple yet effective language, along with imagery (such as metaphors and constant comparisons to nature), to describe a mother who, long gone, still lives on within the shadows of her daughter's thoughts.

With the monotony of six stanzas with six lines each, Patricia exhibits a hint of chaos and disturbance, with her half rhyming words making an appearance in alternate stanzas presenting an ababcc scheme. To add to the almost sinister set up, the mother is introduced in the first stanza with a departure, "My mother went with... bad pain". The usage of the simple word "went" instead of the more obvious option - "died" - hints the reader to the presence of a slight detachment between the mother and the daughter (or the poet herself). Despite this, there is still an element of surprise, or disturbance, due to the departure, as seen through the description, "a shocking white ambulance" - the use of "shocking" shows that it was out of place, and didn't belong.

The second stanza develops the complicated new found relationship between the mother and daughter. Through nature, the mother is personified, depicted as ivy, or a climbing evergreen, transforming into a tree; contrary to the fact that she, as a tree, is rooted to the ground, she "still hops away like a rainbow... I approach". The mention of a "rainbow" here alludes to the fact that no matter how close you get to one, you could never catch it - likewise, no matter how close the daughter got, she would never be able to catch her mother. Her desperation to do so is described through the simple sentence: "my tendrils are the one that clutch." It was her mother that was ivy, a climbing plant, with tendrils that would reach for support, but it is the daughter that is holding on too tightly, as seen through the word, "clutch." As a method of coping, the daughter fabricates a life for her mother, as seen in the third stanza. In this life, her mother is transformed, no longer bound by the clutches of her old life, "frustrated no more"; the daughter imagines her ‘mother’ to be much better than she really was, as a result of their weak and distant relationship, as seen in the first stanza and the apparent out-of-reach set up.

The fourth and fifth paragraph is where the mother's haunting becomes painfully clear. The mention of the "acquired lost woman" appeals to the reader, for while it mentions that only poets and heroes have them, the readers are invited to imagine the feeling of losing a woman, such as a sister, or a mother, or a girlfriend, while simultaneously making them realize that they don’t just haunt the home, but the life as well. The anaphoric use of “who will not alter, who will not grow” gives rise to a dramatic feel, and refers to the evergreen description of her mother, as well as the daunting fact that after death everything is at a standstill. The fifth paragraph presents the mother, the lost woman, and makes the readers realize that the mother did not just haunt the daughter, but the wider populace as well, as seen in the alliterative sentence, “hear how they hate… as they did”, although this could still be part of the daughters illusions. Active during the hazy time of twilight, “rabbit Light”, her mother is shown as a gentle, harmless creature, and so, when she comes out during “rabbit light” she is seen as exactly that; a rabbit.

The sixth and final paragraph completely shatters and contradicts all ideas created by the reader; instead, the truth is revealed. The previously recognized benign creature attacks the reader with a malign tone, as seen in the word, “snaps” – it could have been an allusion to the sentence “nearly always benign”, in which this was the rare times she wasn’t, or the word could have been used to place the idea of something breaking into the readers’ minds. The truth is further uncovered as the ‘lost woman’ attacks the daughter with her words. The sentence “I sacrificed… you took it” shows the displacement of their relationship. The mother sacrifices, and when given the chance, the daughter rises above her, leaving her mom behind. “You are the ghost with the bat-voice” – this statement takes a dark turn, because it is the mother, deceased, accusing her daughter of being the ghost, a dead creature manifested as a living creature, and with a firm four words, “I am not lost” the readers’ are forced to readjust their perspectives, realizing that all along it wasn’t the mother, but the daughter herself.