Concrete Poetry
Concrete poetry originated from two European artists, Max Bill and Oyving Fahlstrom in the 1950's. The movement spread across continents, and was popular by the 1960's. Concrete poetry all started with E.E. Cummings and Ezra Pound. It was very abstract and more of a free lance.Eventually, concrete poetry became less abstract and became more of a specific poetic form.
Swan and Shadow by John Hollander
AnalysisThe title "Swan and Shadow" to me implies that the poem is both happy and sad because a swan usually represents beautiful things and a shadow represents dark, and mysterious things. The poem is about how a swan is portrayed to be this simplistic beautiful creature but behind the shadows it's something much deeper and darker. Hollander stated "A pale signal will appear soon before its shadow fades". He is expressing how something so small can lead to an even bigger discovery, if, you pay close enough attention. "No upon us as at the very edges of where we take shape in the dark air this object bares its image awakening ripples of recognition". Hollander is painting a picture of change or something changing from possibly good to bad. The poem is written in the form of a story as though the writer is trying to feed the story of how things change to possibly a younger crowd. The theme of the poem is change, as stated before that's what the entire poem is about, change and "hidden secrets". Almost as though the writer is trying to say that just because something is beautiful doesn't mean it's good. Kind of like the old sayings "all that glitters isn't gold" and "the devil wears prada".
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Literary DevicesThe literary devices that are used within this poem are personification, and pun. For example "This object bares its image awakening ripples of recognition" is an example of personification because an object cannot awake. "...Of a place past sudden dark as of a swan sang" is an example of a pun because it creates an alternate meaning within the sentence.The purpose of these literary devices in the poem is to express the surreal concept of how dark something so pure and beautiful can be. The literary devices are being applied throughout the poem in ways so that the reader could comprehend the analogy the writer was trying to put in the poem.
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