Comparing and Contrasting. Nettles, Harmonium and Praise Song For My Mother.
Compare and Contrast 3 poems from AQA GCSE Anthology, Moon on the Tides.
In this piece of writing I will be comparing and contrasting 3 poems. Which are ‘Praise Song for my mother’, ‘Harmonium’ and ‘Nettles.
The title of each poem describes exactly what it is and what is about. ‘Praise Song for my Mother’ is not actually a poem, it is a praise son. Which in Guyana (where Grace Nichols was born) it is something written after a person close to them has dies. It is written to commemorate and rejoice about a persons life. ‘Nettles’ is a story about a Scannells son who falls into a pit of stinging nettles. Finally, ‘Harmonium’, ‘Harmonium’ almost says what it’s about in its title. If you break it down it makes harmony, which symbolises the relationship between Armitage and his father.
Each of the poets clearly had different backgrounds growing up by the way the write their poems. Grace Nichols (the writer of ‘Praise song for my Mother’) comes from Guyana and had ‘lots of freedom as she was growing up’ (quoted from a BBC interview) and had an extremely large family, which was very common in Guyana. Nichols described her childhood as ‘magical’ so had a lot of influence over her writing. Vernon Scannell was in WW1, so this has had a lot of influence over his poetry as I will discuss later. Scannell also has six children, similarly to Grace Nichols’ mother. Armitage (the writer of ‘Harmonium’) had a fairly normal childhood and did what most people do, he went to church and was part of a choir, aswell as his father.
Two of the poems focus on male to male relationships, ‘Harmonium’ and ‘Nettles and the other poem focuses on a female to female relationship, ‘Praise Song for my Mother’. So already the relationships are going to be different, as well as the themes. In ‘Praise song for my Mother’ and ‘Harmonium’ it shows that both Nichols and Armitage have very close bonds with their parents. An example of this with ‘Harmonium’ is when Armitage says ‘And he, being
In this piece of writing I will be comparing and contrasting 3 poems. Which are ‘Praise Song for my mother’, ‘Harmonium’ and ‘Nettles.
The title of each poem describes exactly what it is and what is about. ‘Praise Song for my Mother’ is not actually a poem, it is a praise son. Which in Guyana (where Grace Nichols was born) it is something written after a person close to them has dies. It is written to commemorate and rejoice about a persons life. ‘Nettles’ is a story about a Scannells son who falls into a pit of stinging nettles. Finally, ‘Harmonium’, ‘Harmonium’ almost says what it’s about in its title. If you break it down it makes harmony, which symbolises the relationship between Armitage and his father.
Each of the poets clearly had different backgrounds growing up by the way the write their poems. Grace Nichols (the writer of ‘Praise song for my Mother’) comes from Guyana and had ‘lots of freedom as she was growing up’ (quoted from a BBC interview) and had an extremely large family, which was very common in Guyana. Nichols described her childhood as ‘magical’ so had a lot of influence over her writing. Vernon Scannell was in WW1, so this has had a lot of influence over his poetry as I will discuss later. Scannell also has six children, similarly to Grace Nichols’ mother. Armitage (the writer of ‘Harmonium’) had a fairly normal childhood and did what most people do, he went to church and was part of a choir, aswell as his father.
Two of the poems focus on male to male relationships, ‘Harmonium’ and ‘Nettles and the other poem focuses on a female to female relationship, ‘Praise Song for my Mother’. So already the relationships are going to be different, as well as the themes. In ‘Praise song for my Mother’ and ‘Harmonium’ it shows that both Nichols and Armitage have very close bonds with their parents. An example of this with ‘Harmonium’ is when Armitage says ‘And he, being