Poetry Analysis Assignment

Poetry Assignment
by :silfarius s


From the poems we have studied, which two or three do you feel have made their points most effectively?


Although the poems I have studied have been written in different ways about very different subjects, they all have one thing in common – each poet has a 'burning issue' they wish to convey to an audience. The poem I have chosen is David Gill's 'Killing a Whale', this poem describes in detail the horrific and prolonged death of a Whale for the sole purpose of the recovery of oil. It conveys to the reader the pointless death of such a magnificent creature.

The title of this poem is both simple and effective; it bluntly reveals the alarming issue Gill feels so strongly about. The structure of the poem is written in three irregular verses, the first describing the method of attacking a Whale, the second deals with the incredible death of the Whale and the third gives us the feeble and pathetic reason that it is murdered.

The opening line is written in a detached manner in the same format as that of a recipe as if the act of killing a Whale is nothing more extraordinary than that of baking a cake. The poets' true feelings of the procedure become clearer in the second and third lines with the vocabulary he has chosen, as words such as 'shell', 'dynamite' and 'harpoons' are often associated with war and destruction. In the next two lines the poet continues to write in a dispassionate style as if this stage in the poem was but the next step of the recipe. The short sentence 'Take aim' marks a significant change of style and emphasises the importance of the task as an end stop is used.

The remainder of the verse describes in horrific detail the harsh..