Comparing Poems
Todd Taravella
11/2/11
Mr. Olson
Eng D29: Craft of Language Love is Vast It is amazing how poems can be so different yet so similar. When talking about a thing like love, it becomes less difficult to understand knowing how complicated the subject is. “Love” by Eavan Boland talks about how Eavan and her husband had been through some turbulent times. They veered apart in their love that used to be so intense and Eavan about how much she misses that. How much that man, her husband, meant to Eavan. In the song “Photograph” by the band Nickelback it is also a sense of longing. The main character in the song (singer Chad Kroeger) reminisces about the good old days in his hometown in Canada. As Kroeger sings you feel the raw emotion towards the town and everything within it. The love is so intense and he longs for it so badly. By analyzing “Love” by Eavan Boland and “Photograph” by Nickelback it becomes easier to realize that… [While the 2 poems can be quite different in tone, rhyme scheme, style, and other poetic devices, the author’s raw emotion is so similar despite this.] The rhyme schemes are not very similar when talking about “Love” and “Photograph”. Boland uses about 10 syllables per line but there is really no structured rhyme scheme. There is definitely a flow when Boland says something like “I am your wife. It was years ago. Our child was healed. We love each other still” (Boland 210). If someone had to classify it however it would best be classified as free verse. There again is a flow but it just naturally falls into that at times, no structured purpose. As for “Photograph” there is a clear AABB rhyme scheme throughout the song. Right in the first stanza there is Nickelback singing “Look at this photograph, every time I do it makes me laugh, How did our eyes get so red, and what the hell is on Joey’s head” (Nickleback 1-4). The tone in these two works are also very contrasting given a song is much easier to pick up the tone
11/2/11
Mr. Olson
Eng D29: Craft of Language Love is Vast It is amazing how poems can be so different yet so similar. When talking about a thing like love, it becomes less difficult to understand knowing how complicated the subject is. “Love” by Eavan Boland talks about how Eavan and her husband had been through some turbulent times. They veered apart in their love that used to be so intense and Eavan about how much she misses that. How much that man, her husband, meant to Eavan. In the song “Photograph” by the band Nickelback it is also a sense of longing. The main character in the song (singer Chad Kroeger) reminisces about the good old days in his hometown in Canada. As Kroeger sings you feel the raw emotion towards the town and everything within it. The love is so intense and he longs for it so badly. By analyzing “Love” by Eavan Boland and “Photograph” by Nickelback it becomes easier to realize that… [While the 2 poems can be quite different in tone, rhyme scheme, style, and other poetic devices, the author’s raw emotion is so similar despite this.] The rhyme schemes are not very similar when talking about “Love” and “Photograph”. Boland uses about 10 syllables per line but there is really no structured rhyme scheme. There is definitely a flow when Boland says something like “I am your wife. It was years ago. Our child was healed. We love each other still” (Boland 210). If someone had to classify it however it would best be classified as free verse. There again is a flow but it just naturally falls into that at times, no structured purpose. As for “Photograph” there is a clear AABB rhyme scheme throughout the song. Right in the first stanza there is Nickelback singing “Look at this photograph, every time I do it makes me laugh, How did our eyes get so red, and what the hell is on Joey’s head” (Nickleback 1-4). The tone in these two works are also very contrasting given a song is much easier to pick up the tone
Bibliography: Boland, Eavan. “Love” Contemporary American Poetry. Ed. R.S Gwyn and April Linder. New York: Penguin Academics, 2005. 210. Print. Web. Nickelback. “Photograph” All The Right Reasons. Roadrunner, 2005. MP3 file.