hi, i really need help analysin this poem, and how it addresses the concept of a physical journey, also any websites with analysis of this poem would be greatly appreciated

The Man From Snowy River
Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
There was movement at the station, for the word has passed around
That the colt from old Regret had got away,
And had joined the wild bush horses—he was worth a thousand pound,
So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
All the tried and noted riders from the stations near and far
Had mustered at the homestead overnight,
For the bushmen love hard riding where the wild bush horses are,
And the stock-horse snuffs the battle with delight.

There was Harrison, who made his pile when Pardon won the cup,
The old man with his hair as white as snow;
But few could ride beside him when his blood was fairly up—
He would go wherever horse and man could go.
And Clancy of the Overflow came down to lend a hand;
No better horseman ever held the reins;
For never horse could throw him while the saddle girths would stand—
He had learnt to ride while droving on the plains.

And one was there, a sripling on a small and weedy beast,
He was something like a racehorse undersized,
With a touch of Timor pony—three parts thoroughbred at least—
And such as are by mountain horsemen prized.
He was hard and tough and wiry—just the sort that won't say die—
There was courage in his quick impatient tread;
And he bore the badge of gameness in his bright and fiery eye,
And the proud and lofty carriage of his head.

But still so slight and weedy, one would doubt his power to stay,
And the old man said, "That horse will never do
For a long and tiring gallop—lad, you'd better stop away,
For those hills are far too rough for such as you."
So he waited, sad and wistful—only Clancy stood his friend—
"I think we ought to let him come," he said;
"I warrant he'll be with us when he's wanted at the end,
For both his horse and he are mountain bred.

'He hails from Snowy River, up by Kosiosko's side,
Where the hills are twice as steep and twice as rough;
Where the horse's hoofs strike firelight from the flintstones every stride,
There the man that holds his own is good enough.
And the Snowy River riders in the mountains make their home,
Wher the river runs those giant hills between;
I have seen full many riders since I first commenced to roam,
But nowhere yet such horsemen have I seen."

So he went; they found the horses by the big mimosa clump,
They raced away towards the mountain's brow,
And the old man gave his orders, "Boys, go at them from the jump,
No use to try for fancy riding now.
And, Clancy, you must wheel them, try and wheel them to the right.
Ride boldly, lad, and never fear the spills,
For never yet was rider that could keep the mob in sight,
If once they gain the shelter of those hills."

So Clancy rode to wheel them—he was racing on the wing
Where the best and boldest riders take their place.
And he raced his stock-horse past them. and he made the ranges ring
With his stock-whip, as he met them face to face.
Then they halted for a moment, while he swung the dreaded lash,
But they saw their well-loved mountain full in view,
And they charged beneath the stock-whip with a sharp and sudden dash,
And off into the mountain scrub they flew.

Then fast the horsemen followed, where the gorges deep and black
Resounded to the thunder of their tread,
And their stock-whips woke the echoes, and they fiercely answered back
from the cliffs and crags that beetled overhead.
And upward, ever upward, the wild horses held their way,
Where the mountain ash and kurrajong grew wide;
And the old man muttered fiercely, "We may bid the mob good-day,
For no man can hold them down the other side."

When they reached the mountain's summit, even Clancy took a pull—
It well might make the boldest hold their breath;
For the wild hop scrub grew thickly, and the hidden ground was full
Of wombat holes, and any slip meant death.
But the man from Snowy River let the pony have its head,
He swung his stock-whip round and gave a cheer,
And he raced him down that mountain like a torrent down its bed,
While the others stood and watched in very fear.

He sent the flintstones flying, but the pony kept its feet,
He cleared the fallen timber in his stride,
And the man from Snowy River never shifted in his seat—
It was grand to see that mountain horseman ride.
Through the stringy barks and saplings, over rough and broken ground,
Down the hillside at a racing pace he went;
And he never drew the bridle till he landed safe and sound
At the bottom of that terrible descent.

He was right among the horses as he climbed the further hill,
And the watchers on the hillside, standing mute,
Saw him ply the stock-whip fiercely; he was right among them still,
As he raced across a clearing in pursuit.
Then they lost him for a moment, where two mountain gullies met
In the ranges—but a final glimpse reveals
On a dim and distant hillside, the wild horses racing yet
With the man from Snowy River at their heels.

And he ran them single-handed till their flanks were white with foam;
He followed like a bloodhound in their track,
Till they halted, cowed and beaten; and he turned their heads for home,
And alone and unassisted brought them back.
But his hardy mountain pony he could scarcely raise a trot,
He was blood from hip to shoulder from the spur;
But his pluck was still undaunted, and his courage fiery hot,
For never yet was mountain horse a cur.

And down by Kosiosko, where the pine-clad ridges raise
Their torn and rugged battlements on high,
Where the air is clear as crystal, and the white stars fairly blaze
Of a midnight in the cold and frosty sky,
And where around the Overflow the reed-beds sweep and sway
To the breezes, and the rolling plains are wide,
There the man from Snowy River is a household word today,
And the stockmen tell the story of his ride.

Stacy, I believe this poem is a classic of Australian literature. Your local library may have some criticism, or analysis of it. Ask your school, or city librarian to help you with that.

As far as the poem addressing the concept of a physical journey, it certainly does that. Divide the poem into different aspects and then address each topic separately in your essay.

Here are some possible subtopics:

1. Setting/ (the reason for the ride)

2. Characters/ ( why was the man from Snowy River special)

3. ponies/ (what was the purpose of the roundup, why was the Man from Snowy River's horse a special pony)

4. travel/ (obviously the poem is about a journey, but how does this journey compare to those most of us experience today)

5. legends/ (how was the man from Snowy River a legend/ how did he become a legend)

6. personal growth/ (is this the type of journey you would enjoy? Why, or why not?)

Stacy, if you can organize your essay in this manner using several subtopics, I think you can write quite a lot about this particular poem. Good luck and let us know how you do.

Les

Don't judge a book by its cover
Good things come in small packages
The proof is in the pudding
All that is gold does not glitter
By their fruit you shall know them (Matthew 7:20) sorry, no red script.


The list goes on and on.


Jack

Jack, please explain your comments in light of this statement by Stacy:

>i really need help analysin this poem, and how it addresses the concept of a physical journey


Les

Clancy was the only one who thought that the horse (and the man) from Snowy River could do the job.

"But still so slight and weedy, one would doubt his power to stay,
And the old man said, "That horse will never do
For a long and tiring gallop—lad, you'd better stop away,
For those hills are far too rough for such as you."

And, as you pointed out it addresses 'the concept of a physical journey' by being a poem ABOUT a physical journey.

pam

Stacy, this famous poem is so accessible and straightforward, I can't believe you could have any difficulty understanding it, even if there's the odd word or two you need to look up in the Macquarie Dictionary.

Is your real problem one of understanding what aspects you are expected to cover in that soulless, mechanical approach to poetry called 'analysis'?

If so, by using the 'find' function on the Homework Assistance page to search for 'analysis' or 'analysing' or 'analyse', you should be able to find lots of helpful advice which has been given about that, especially by Les, to others having a similar problem.

i need help analysising the poem the eigth air force

Robert, there is some info. here:

[www.english.uiuc.edu]


Les

If, in an odd angle of the hutment,
A puppy laps the water from a can
Of flowers, and the drunk sergeant shaving
Whistles O Paradiso!--shall I say that man
Is not as men have said: a wolf to man?

(hutment - a bunch of military huts. What is the 'wolf to man' reference?)
(Rhyme scheme is abcbb, feminine endings on ac, masculine on the b's.)
(Meter here is iambic pentameter.)

The other murderers troop in yawning;
Three of them play Pitch, one sleeps, and one
Lies counting missions, lies there sweating
Till even his heart beats: One; One; One.
O murderers! . . . Still, this is how it's done:

(Pilots are murders. Tone is very low key. Meter is ragged now.)

This is a war . . . But since these play, before they die,
Like puppies with their puppy; since, a man,
I did as these have done, but did not die--
I will content the people as I can
And give up these to them: Behold the man!

(All masculine endings here. Pilots again are reproved.)
(Who is 'the man'? Jarrell? Christ? Line 1 won't scan, at least for me.)

I have suffered, in a dream, because of him,
Many things; for this last saviour, man,
I have lied as I lie now. But what is lying?
Men wash their hands, in blood, as best they can:
I find no fault in this just man.

(All masc. endings except for line 3. Line 5 has only 4 beats? Again we have to figure out who the man is.)

There's a definite link to Pontius Pilate, who asked "What is truth?", washed his hands and said he found no fault in this just Man.
John 18:38 Matthew 27:24



Post Edited (08-06-04 15:14)

Anyone found a website with detailed infromation on the techniques in this poem?

Plz help me!!

Anne Julie, your chances of getting help on this will be much better if you start again. Go to the top of this thread and click on New Topic and re-post your request as the start a new thread; and if you are able to, post the text of the poem (or the address of a website where it can be read) for give potential helpers something to look at.

Maybe you can add whatever preliminary thoughts you have about the poem.

Googling:

[tinyurl.com]


My Blue Heaven


I thought it was a Glue Factory -

a whiff of boiled bones

and the knacker's yard


excreted in the lee of the fells.

The smell of desperate exhumations 5

briefly fills the car.


I was wrong, the wind flicking

the plosive back into the throat:

it's the Blue Factory


staining the air, staining 10

the village beck, leaving

its cobalt drift of talcum


on window-sill and ledge,

tinting the grey-green slate

with hints of early Picasso. 15


The factory chimney steams

like a pencil designing fumes.

All this to manufacture Blue:


that stuff to make the sheets gleam

bright in a glossy commercial, 20

the stuff they use to justify


the suburbs' aerial madness.

As the ferro-cyanic stench

recedes, I wonder what


strange manufacturer 25

makes all the distant stuff

that gives some inflated clouds


their whiter than cotton whiteness?

What heavenly smell, pray,

lies behind all that? 30


Rodney Pybus

Thanks, Hugh, for posting the poem.

I sympathize with you, Anne Julie, having to analyze this one. The more I read it, the less I like it. It's tricked out to look like clever writing, with the early apposition of Glue and Blue, some erudite vocabulary, classy looking three-line stanzas; and a superior, almost sneering tone (‘…the stuff they use to justify the suburbs’ aerial madness’); but it appears devoid of any genuine feeling, or sincere engagement in the subject (the frivolous title alone gives that away), and has nothing interesting or important to say. There's no hint that it's meant as a parody or ironic lampoon. I find it utterly pretentious.

Nicely put, Ian. The other link failed to work, for some reason. Here is the critique that is on it, if I may be forgiven being so gauche:


My Blue Heaven – Rodney Pybus

About the poet

British - born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in Northumberland, 5th June, 1938. In 1961 he married Ella Pybus. They had two sons. Pybus worked as a teacher, journalist, TV show writer, university lecturer and magazine editor.

Many of Pybus’ more successful poems are those portraying the extremities of contrast between the world of possibilities and the horror man made of it.

Theme / Message

The poem vividly describes how man has polluted and destroyed the Earth, spreading like a cancer over the Earth’s surface. The pollution produced by the glue factory – the “whiff of bones and the smell of desperate exhumations”, “staining the air, staining the village beck”.

Structure

• 10 stanzas of 3 lines each

• No rhyme scheme

• No set syllables per line

• The entire poem is 5 sentences

• Lots of enjambment and breaking mid-sentence to create choppy, short, sometimes broken like the environment blue factory slowly breaking down?

Language Features

• Repetition – “staining the air, the village beck” – The repetition of ‘staining’ emphasises the difficulty in removing the smells and coloured stains, resulting from the glue factory. Once something is stained it is difficult to lift the mark. Repeating the connotative verb emphasises this. Repetition of the word “stuff” – which of course we know is Blue – is to un-name the substance. The substance being ‘Blue’, a brand of washing powder, but by labeling it ‘stuff’, the poet takes away the identity of Blue. Or perhaps the product does not even deserve a name, and therefore degraded to ‘stuff’.

• Verbs – “Excreted” – To discharge waste matter from the body. Excreted is a very strong connotative word to use in the description of a ‘whiff’. The fells, or the animal hides ‘excreting’ a smell gives an indication of how bad and prolonging the odor is.

“Staining”, “Leaving” and “Tinting” – These are all actions of decomposition. ‘Stuff’ is being deposited everywhere, impossible to wash clean and turning our world in a different shade of colour. Shows the strong adherence of Blue.

“Justify” – Blue is used to justify “the suburb’s aerial madness” – ie: the smoke, the washing lines, and the overwhelming stench. I feel that the use of “justify” is warn people against false justifications from manufacturers, because Blue manufacturing caused most of the “aerial madness” it is supposed to justify. This form of irony (says one thing, but means another).

• Adjectives – desperate, cobalt, grey-green. Bright, glossy, aerial, Ferro-cyanic, strange, distant, inflated, whiter than cotton, heavenly.

Many adjectives in this poem are about the colour and smells. Shades of colour, intensity of colour and degrees of smell.

The smell of “desperate exhumations” briefly fills the car. To exhume is to dig up a corpse, therefore it vividly creates for us a smell of exhumations. A desperate exhumation though, makes the smell seem brief, short-lived and powerless to linger for long periods of time.

“Cobalt drift of talcum, grey-green slate, early Picasso” are descriptions of the blue factory, smoke residues collecting on windowsills and ledges. The silvery cobalt talcum powder landing on a dark grey-green piece of slate to form an abstract picture like a Picasso. This vividly creates for the reader the image of smoke from the factory and how it pollutes the neighbourhood residents.

Notice how the poet uses some positively connotated adjectives and phrases to describe Blue:

“Stuff to make the sheets gleam bright in a glossy commercial”

“stuff that gives some inflated clouds their whiter than cotton gleam”

This is a contrast to the dark, polluting images of Blue manufacturing. The deliberate contrast is to make the readers weigh up the importance of “gleaming sheets” and “whiter than cotton whiteness” against the importance of reducing pollution.

Questions

The poet asks two questions:

1. “All this to manufacture Blue: that stuff…the distant stuff gives some inflated clouds their whiter than cotton whiteness?” This question highlights the frivolous nature of the ‘Blue’ product and the serious consequences of manufacturing it. (ie: All this pollution just to manufacture some washing powder to whiten shirts? This question tries to make the readers realise that Blue is undesirable, and conveys the poet’s disdain for it.

2. “What heavenly smell, pray lies behind all that?” Here, ‘that’ is emphasised in italics and refers to the commercials and the whiter than cotton whiteness. The question pointedly doubts the goodness and benefits of Blue by asking, if manufacturing Blue produces “Ferro-cyanic” stench, what are the “heavenly smells” that Blue emits? IGCSE page


I could have posted a new link, but the petitioner likely would not have seen it anyway.