Hey Faoite,

attached is part of a sample answer for this question; if you would like the full answer please email me at ryjolc@gmail.com and check out my website www.ryjolc.wordpress.com for further notes and answers for Leaving Cert English.

John


What impact did the poetry of Thomas Kinsella make on you as a reader? Your answer should deal with your sense of the poet's personality and the poet's use of language and imagery.

My recent study of Thomas Kinsella's poetry was extremely beneficial, as it allowed me to consider issues in ways I had never thought of before. This was due to Kinsella's dealing of themes in fresh and unique ways, due to his his unique take on such themes, as well as his use of imagery and other stylistic tools such as personification to present his messages in a novel manner. The poems in which this is seen are Thinking of Mr. D, Mirror in February, Hen Woman, Model School, Inchicore, Echo and His Father’s Hands.

As mentioned, Kinsella's poetry allowed me to consider themes in ways I had never before because of his unique take on certain themes. This is seen with his examination of the changing state of life, where he varies from examples as deep and meaningful as aging and death to are irrelevant as the breaking of an egg to show throughout his poetry how life can change situations.
Mirror in February focuses on Kinsella’s revelation that he is no longer young. It takes place on a day which ‘dawns with scene of must and rain’, and the poet Kinsella, who is in the middle of ‘Idling on some compulsive fantasy’ looks upon himself with ‘a dark exhausted eye’ and ‘A dry downturning mouth’. It is then that he realises he is no longer young and that it is ‘time to learn’ that he has grown old, rather than indulge in fantasy any longer. He realises that he is no longer young as he once believed, and that ‘I have looked my last on youth’. As the poem comes to an end the poet acts in a manner that he believes is appropriate to his state; not indulging in fantasy, but instead choosing to ‘fold my towel with what grace I can,/ Not young and now renewable, but man’. Thinking of Mr. D differs in example, but once more shows how life can change. The poem reveals how one’s vibrancy will inevitably fade at the time of death. Kinsella begins describing Mr. D as a lively individual. Kinsella tells us he is ‘still light of foot’ and while he is ‘ageing’ that he is still able to indulge in revelry, ‘his quiet tongue/ Danced to such cheerful slander… sipped and swallowed with a scathing smile’. However soon Mr. D’s liveliness is no more as he passes away, with Kinsella remarking that ‘When he died I saw him twice’. Now Mr. D is no longer full of life; instead the poet presents him as subject to the elements, presenting the recently deceased man looking out onto a river but subject to the ‘wharf-/Lamps’ which ‘plunged him in and out of light’. No longer is he the one who seeks to cause pain or suffering to others, as he once did with his ‘cheerful slander’; now he is ‘A priestlike figure turning, wolfish-slim,/ Quickly aside from pain, in a bodily plight,/ To note the oiled reflections chime and swim’. Another example is seen with Hen Woman. The poem centres on how life does not always turn out as one plans it. Initially the woman plans to retrieve an egg from the hen; we hear that she is clearly intent on taking an egg from the hen and returning back inside, and that ‘hurried out in her slippers muttering, her face dark with anger, and gathered the hen up jerking/ languidly’. However the woman does not receive the egg which she had hoped and planned for; we hear that ‘Her hand fumbled./ Too late. Too late’. Rather than receive the egg the woman drops it, and the poet reveals how rather than being brought inside to the house the egg ‘feel and turned over slowly…. it floated outward, moon-white,/ leaving no trace in the air,/ and began its drop to the shore’. Eventually we hear of its destroyal, as ‘It smashed against the grating/ and slipped down quickly out of sight’. Indeed, the woman’s reaction even provides another insight into how live can change unexpectedly; at the poem’s beginning she is described with ‘her dace dark with anger’ and one would expect her to be frustrated at the unexpected outcome, yet she is the complete opposite, laughing at the breaking of the egg, ‘her eyes came to life, and she laughed/ and let the bird flap away’.

Another theme that Kinsella considers in a fresh manner is relationships. Throughout his poetry Kinsella focuses on some of the most meaningful relationships individuals have, such as God, one’s father and one’s love, yet he does not focus on these in the conventional optimistic sense, which would not be unsurprising due to the importance of these relationships in one’s life. Rather he considers drawbacks to the relationships which, while somewhat pessimistic, is a more realistic presentation of these.
This is seen in Model School, Inchicore. Kinsella, while in school, wonders about the relationship God has with each individual. However, rather than consider God as a being who always has our best interests at heart, Kinsella wonders if we will still be cared for by God if we do wrong. The poet wonders how God views each person, firstly asking ‘Will God judge/ our most secret thoughts and actions?’ however soon after seems sure that this will be the case, and declares ‘God will judge/ our most secret thoughts and actions’. He concludes that God will take everything we do in our lives into account and judge us for all of our actions when the time comes, remarking that ‘every idle word that man shall speak/ he shall render an account of it/ on the Day of Judgement.’ Elsewhere, in His Father’s Hands, Kinsella does not appear to be on good terms with his father, even if he is so with his grandfather. Kinsella initially speaks of his grandfather working away, ‘tightening the black Plug/ between knife and thumb’. Such is his admiration of the man that he imitates him; while his grandather ‘kept the sprigs in mouthfuls/ and brought them out in silvery/ units between his lips’ the young poet ‘took a pinch out of their hole/ and knocked them one by one into the wood’. However he does not appear so affectionate of his father, and there is no suggestion of any harmony between the pair, which presents the relationship as more realistic as it reflects problems that are inevitably going to appear in the relationship and thus presents the relationship, like all father-son and other relationships, as containing tension and disagreement. While Kinsella is drinking with him he reveals how ‘I drank firmly/ and set the glass down beteen us firmly’, suggesting a disagreement between the two. His lines ‘You were saying.// My father/ Was saying’ suggests not only a resentment towards what and/or how his father is speaking to him but also a growing distance between the two; while he initially refers to his father as ‘You’ immediately after it is ‘My father’. Echo shows a similarly realistic portrayal of relationships, suggesting that rather than a presence of complete honesty there are always secrets, untruths and deception in romantic partnerships. Initially the relationship appears promising; the male brings the female to a place of comfort, leading her from the ‘thorns/ from the broken gate’ to ‘the heart of the wood/ to the holy well’. Here both reveal truths to each other, suggesting honesty and sincerness; ‘They revealed their names/ and told their tales/ as they said they would/ on that distant day/ when their love began’. However as the two leave, it seems as though the female is not wholeheartedly committed to open and honest, because when ‘they turned to leave’ the poet reveals how ‘she stopped and whispered/ a final secret/ down to the water’. In addition, the title of the poem ‘Echo’, suggests deception in a relationship, as in Greek mythology Echo was a nymph who distracted Hera while her husband had affairs with other myths. The mention of ‘Echo’ as the title suggests that deception is present in some form, even if the use of ‘He’ and ‘She’ leaves the characters of the relationship anonymous.

Noelymurphy,

hasn't come up in some years so is one of the more likely, but do study five just in case.

John

www.ryjolc.wordpress.com

I'd delete this if I could, it doesn't matter anymore :L done the oral, meh... :/

no you should be allowed to brng it in, coz i know few peple who are brought novel covers for their document and that has english on it ND i know a chap who brought in celtic match tickt but AH WELL ASK UR TEACHER :L

Hey Bobjimmy,

below is part of my sample answer; if you would like the full answer please email me at ryjolc@gmail.com and please check out my website www.ryjolc.wordpress.com for further notes and sample answers for Leaving Certifcate English.

John


‘Larkin is a deceptive poet, often what appears as a straightforward commentary on a place or event can lead to a much deeper discussion.

Philip Larkin is a deceptive poet. While in his poetry he appears to be providing straightforward commentary on a place or event this often leads to a much deeper discussion, as his poetry contains multiple and underlying themes and messages. This can be seen when considering the ordinary themes he focuses on, his focus on the situations of ordinary people, his contrasting imagery and his honesty, as well as the poems ‘Wedding Wind’, ‘Church Going’, ‘Ambulances’, ‘At Grass’, ‘The Trees’ and ‘Whitsun Weddings’.

As said, in Larkin’s poems, he often appears to be undertaking a simple commentary on a place or event. Such examples are seen in his poetry as he focuses on ordinary themes which comprise of events that all can relate to, such as the joyous feeling one experiences at the beginning of a relationship or marriage, the decline of religion in life, as well as the time when one realises how close death is.
In ‘Wedding Wind’ Larkin focuses on the effect of relationships in one’s life. The poet comments on the forceful change in life when one enters marriage, comparing it to ‘the wind/ Hunting through clouds and forests, thrashing/ My apron and the hanging cloths on the line’, which presents it as that which can enact huge changes in one’s life. The woman in the poem has experienced such change as a result of her marriage and now has overwhelming happiness, and reveals on her wedding night that she is ‘sad/ That any man or beast that night should lack/ The happiness I had.’ As the poem comes to an end she even begins to wonder if she can cope with such intense happiness for the remainder of her life, happiness which marriage has brought her: ‘Can it be borne, this bodying-forth by wind/ Of joy my actions turn on, like a thread/ Carrying beads?’ Another ordinary theme, and event, is considered in ‘Church Going’, with the focus here on the decline of religion in one’s life. Larkin presents the narrator as one who, like many in life, see no point in attending church anymore; he tells us he is ‘sure there’s nothing going on’ in the church and reflects that ‘the place was not worth stopping for’. He has no respect for the place, symbolized when he enters, as he lets ‘the door thud shut’. Furthermore, he admits he has had no interest in the lace for a while, as he tells us that while ‘the roof looks almost new’ he does not know whether this is ‘Cleaned, or restored? Some one would know: I don’t.’ In ‘Ambulances’ Larkin considers another event that all experience, the moment when life’s fragile state is realised. Larkin comments on how we are all frighteningly close to death by presenting it in an everyday context. His pun that ‘the sudden shot of loss’ of death is ‘borne away in deadened air’ is symbolic of how close death and life are; they are not simply side by side, they are intertwined. Larkin conveys how death is an everyday part of life by telling us us that deaths ‘come to rest at any kerb’ and reminds us ‘All streets in time are visited’. He suggests further that this creates an unsettling quality in life, as individuals become fixated by the deaths that occur throughout life, remarking that these deaths give ‘back/None of the glances they absorb’, with the glances referring to those who see and experience death, and become affected by this.

Such events are furthermore presented as ordinary with Larkin’s use of ordinary people in such moments. This confirms these events as ordinary as the use of non-specific individuals presents them as applicable to most, if not all, people.
This is seen in ‘The Wedding Wind’. The protaganist of the poem is a newly-wed wife, a non-specific individual so as to emphasize the ordinariness of her character. She has no name and maintains a position that many can relate to, recently entering a marriage; she tells us the poem takes place on ‘my wedding day’. Many can thus empathize with her happiness at her recent marriage, if they have ever experienced this day themselves or even the beginning of a marriage when happiness is rife, and appreciate how she feels when she ‘was sad/ Than any many or beast that night should lack/ The happiness I had’, as well as her questioning if this joyous feeling will ever subside: ‘Can even death dry up/ These new delighted lakes, conclude/ Our kneeling as cattle by all-generous waters?’. The same effect is achieved in ‘Ambulances’. Larkin does not characterize the subjects of his poem, those facing death. Mention is made only of ‘children strewn on steps or road’ or ‘women coming from the shops’. When awareness is made of how close death is in the poem, it is from an unidentified character as ‘They whisper at their own distress’. The result is the suggestion that all in the poem are affected, as death appears as a universal experience, affecting all in some way. The result is similar to ‘Wedding Wind’, as it suggests that all can empathize with the situation, as it is non-specific and focuses on a topic and emotion/feeling that all can relate to. We see similar in ‘Church Going’. In the poem Larkin focuses again on non-specific characters, to create situations which are general and that many can relate to. They are not extraordinary, but simply instances that many can and do experience. After commenting on the decline of the church he focuses on how others, like himself, experience this. He wonders what others turn to instead of the church now, asking if ‘after dark, will dubious women come/ To make their children touch a particular stone’, suggesting superstition, which many live their lives by. He does warn such individuals, here the ‘women’, that ‘superstition, like belief, must die’, and these people will then have to look for some other creed, ‘when disbelief has gone’.

Hey Ciara_wardy,

below is part of my sample answer; if you would like the full answer please email me at ryjolc@gmail.com and please check out my website www.ryjolc.wordpress.com for further notes and sample answers for Leaving Certifcate English.

John


‘Larkin is a deceptive poet, often what appears as a straightforward commentary on a place or event can lead to a much deeper discussion.

Philip Larkin is a deceptive poet. While in his poetry he appears to be providing straightforward commentary on a place or event this often leads to a much deeper discussion, as his poetry contains multiple and underlying themes and messages. This can be seen when considering the ordinary themes he focuses on, his focus on the situations of ordinary people, his contrasting imagery and his honesty, as well as the poems ‘Wedding Wind’, ‘Church Going’, ‘Ambulances’, ‘At Grass’, ‘The Trees’ and ‘Whitsun Weddings’.

As said, in Larkin’s poems, he often appears to be undertaking a simple commentary on a place or event. Such examples are seen in his poetry as he focuses on ordinary themes which comprise of events that all can relate to, such as the joyous feeling one experiences at the beginning of a relationship or marriage, the decline of religion in life, as well as the time when one realises how close death is.
In ‘Wedding Wind’ Larkin focuses on the effect of relationships in one’s life. The poet comments on the forceful change in life when one enters marriage, comparing it to ‘the wind/ Hunting through clouds and forests, thrashing/ My apron and the hanging cloths on the line’, which presents it as that which can enact huge changes in one’s life. The woman in the poem has experienced such change as a result of her marriage and now has overwhelming happiness, and reveals on her wedding night that she is ‘sad/ That any man or beast that night should lack/ The happiness I had.’ As the poem comes to an end she even begins to wonder if she can cope with such intense happiness for the remainder of her life, happiness which marriage has brought her: ‘Can it be borne, this bodying-forth by wind/ Of joy my actions turn on, like a thread/ Carrying beads?’ Another ordinary theme, and event, is considered in ‘Church Going’, with the focus here on the decline of religion in one’s life. Larkin presents the narrator as one who, like many in life, see no point in attending church anymore; he tells us he is ‘sure there’s nothing going on’ in the church and reflects that ‘the place was not worth stopping for’. He has no respect for the place, symbolized when he enters, as he lets ‘the door thud shut’. Furthermore, he admits he has had no interest in the lace for a while, as he tells us that while ‘the roof looks almost new’ he does not know whether this is ‘Cleaned, or restored? Some one would know: I don’t.’ In ‘Ambulances’ Larkin considers another event that all experience, the moment when life’s fragile state is realised. Larkin comments on how we are all frighteningly close to death by presenting it in an everyday context. His pun that ‘the sudden shot of loss’ of death is ‘borne away in deadened air’ is symbolic of how close death and life are; they are not simply side by side, they are intertwined. Larkin conveys how death is an everyday part of life by telling us us that deaths ‘come to rest at any kerb’ and reminds us ‘All streets in time are visited’. He suggests further that this creates an unsettling quality in life, as individuals become fixated by the deaths that occur throughout life, remarking that these deaths give ‘back/None of the glances they absorb’, with the glances referring to those who see and experience death, and become affected by this.

Such events are furthermore presented as ordinary with Larkin’s use of ordinary people in such moments. This confirms these events as ordinary as the use of non-specific individuals presents them as applicable to most, if not all, people.
This is seen in ‘The Wedding Wind’. The protaganist of the poem is a newly-wed wife, a non-specific individual so as to emphasize the ordinariness of her character. She has no name and maintains a position that many can relate to, recently entering a marriage; she tells us the poem takes place on ‘my wedding day’. Many can thus empathize with her happiness at her recent marriage, if they have ever experienced this day themselves or even the beginning of a marriage when happiness is rife, and appreciate how she feels when she ‘was sad/ Than any many or beast that night should lack/ The happiness I had’, as well as her questioning if this joyous feeling will ever subside: ‘Can even death dry up/ These new delighted lakes, conclude/ Our kneeling as cattle by all-generous waters?’. The same effect is achieved in ‘Ambulances’. Larkin does not characterize the subjects of his poem, those facing death. Mention is made only of ‘children strewn on steps or road’ or ‘women coming from the shops’. When awareness is made of how close death is in the poem, it is from an unidentified character as ‘They whisper at their own distress’. The result is the suggestion that all in the poem are affected, as death appears as a universal experience, affecting all in some way. The result is similar to ‘Wedding Wind’, as it suggests that all can empathize with the situation, as it is non-specific and focuses on a topic and emotion/feeling that all can relate to. We see similar in ‘Church Going’. In the poem Larkin focuses again on non-specific characters, to create situations which are general and that many can relate to. They are not extraordinary, but simply instances that many can and do experience. After commenting on the decline of the church he focuses on how others, like himself, experience this. He wonders what others turn to instead of the church now, asking if ‘after dark, will dubious women come/ To make their children touch a particular stone’, suggesting superstition, which many live their lives by. He does warn such individuals, here the ‘women’, that ‘superstition, like belief, must die’, and these people will then have to look for some other creed, ‘when disbelief has gone’.