Poetry Assessment :: English Literature

Poetry Assessment 'Nothings Changed' is a powerful piece of poetic literature which portrays in a provocative way, the poverty and apartheid in Post-Nelson Mandela South Africa and how 'Nothings Changed' since he has been elected as president. It starts in a harsh abrupt way 'small round hard stones' quickly brings forth a strong image of a dirty pathway littered with stones, the next few lines 'cans trodden on, crunch' and 'tall, purple-flowering, amiable weeds' add to this picture and describes in greater detail the untidy, poorly maintained wasteland. The 'purple-flowering weeds' border the rocky causeway and give stark contrast to the ugliness of the area as it has been described insofar. The character in the poem goes into a 'Whites Only' area, where he feels very unwelcome. At first, he seems contented to walk through a familiar area and revisit the place where he had lived. However, this mood changes abruptly when he comes across a 'Whites Only' inn which makes him feel very angry and even violent. The rhythm of this poem is very slow and thoughtful and the stanzas act like paragraphs. This works well because it creates a sense of him crushing his growing anger and hostility as he remembers his childhood. There are however some striking short lines for effect, these represent a growing struggle inside him to keep his fury under control. Examples of this are 'Anger of my eyes' 'brash with glass' 'it's in the bone' 'hands burn' The poet uses these short lines because they are dramatic, simple but powerful and memorable. There are many examples of poetic devices in 'Nothings Changed', especially in the third stanza: my first choice is line 18, where the poet describes the name as 'flaring like a flag'. This simile is effective because 'flaring' suggests a fire and it is a provocative image. The restaurant 'squats in the grass and weeds'. I think the poet compares the restaurant to something lurking and sinister because this place represents everything that they are fighting against. In conclusion, I think that the poem does not really work well, it fails to truly break the surface of thought and although it tries to put across the poet's thoughts and feelings on racism it fails quite miserably because of the simple fact that the writing is bound by literary laws of poetry. 'In the greyness and drizzle of one despondent dawn, unstirred by harbingers of sun break.' Vultures (by Chinua Achebe) opens in a grandiose and portentous fashion that immediately fills the reader's mind with a sense of a macabre and unhappy morning, the grey skies do not encourage a sense of happiness or contentment nor does it give any indication that this