Hi! So I'm planning to do "Mid-Term Break" by Seamus Heaney!
Shout out to Elyse for the suggestion 
Although, I'm kinda confused on how it's exploring discovery... Like I can see that it touches on discovery but only on a superficial level.
Hey Dalvin! Sorry this took two days, I needed to get out the poem and read it again. Upon reading, I remembered how much I like the simplicity of this poem.
I think that upon first reading, a lot of poems seem superficial because you're yet to make inferences.
- "Sudden and unexpected"
- "Confronting"
- Emotional and intellectual discovery
- Involves both the journey of discovering for the persona and the reader
- "renewed perceptions of ourselves and others"
These are all really solid parts of the syllabus. I will add also, the poet also makes the physical discovery that his brother has died. I think you've made some good analysis, but it seems to be based off the content of the poem and not so much the creation of the poem. For example, we see each stanza has three lines, except the last. This marks a shift, a change in his perspective. The poet has changed his expression (transformed his perspective), after making the discovery. So that's something else to add to the list. Perhaps we can also infer the new speculations about the future he's going to dabble in based on the marked shift in his poetry style at the end. This can even be seen as manifesting in a creative discovery! But, that might be a tenuous link.
I think a particular point of focus for me would be the father. It says he's usually quite stout and stern, but here he's showing a different side. That's a physical, emotional, and possibly even intellectual discovery for just these two lines. Placed in context, we can see how significant this was to see a grown man cry.
I think also, one of the strongest parts of the poem for me is the expression of emotion. He felt embarrassed by people shaking his hands, the baby cooed, the dad cried, the mother sobbed, people whispered, and the poet wrote.
So I think now, you've got some ideas of where the poem touches in the rubric, and now you need to see what you can take from the poem when you tease out each section of the rubric, kind of like I've done above. But include analysis of techniques as well. Look, it could become a dead end if you don't feel like it's strong enough with your prescribed, but with a bit of work I think this has wonderful potential. The poem isn't too difficult, nor is it too shallow. So you've got yourself a good deal!
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Topic: Help in understanding a related text (Read 3680 times)