AAFTER US In this poem, the poet uses a surplus of imagery to allow the reader to fully see what she is trying to get us to picture. In the first line, she talks about how rain, which can be destructive or helpful, is seeping into a room where books and other material things reside. In the lines to follow, she writes about how everything that flourished under the sun, turned away to try and find the light that they so desperately need. This shows the destructive side to rain because it paints the picture of a dark day with rain falling and silencing all activities that happen during the day. In the second paragraph, the poet writes about a portrait, which has sketches of boats and barns and this creates the image of a perfect utopia where everything is peaceful and nothing has disturbed it. The paragraph that follows this peaceful picture, is where the foreboding and evil rain begins to make its appearance again. She writes about how everything that was ever thought of or invented or t...
PPALE FIRE In Canto 1, the poet John Shade describes his brushes with mortality, which made him into the poet he is. He saw a waxwing bird "slain" by running into a plate glass window, perhaps when he was still a boy. His childhood was also marked by a series of fits or seizures, which suddenly resolved themselves. In Canto 2, the poet describes his ideas about life after death. He also recounts the life and death of his daughter, Hazel. She was an awkward girl who unfortunately inherited Shade's looks. One winter night in 1957, Hazel mysteriously drowned in a lake. It is unclear whether she got lost in the snow or intentionally killed herself. In Canto 3, Shade describes his experiences as a lecturer for the Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter. Shade pronounces the acronym "I.P.H." like the word if, signifying uncertainty about the afterlife. Although he is interested in questions about life after death, Shade is an atheist. He describes a near-death ex...