Analysis Poem Bushed

October 9, 2017 | Author: Aleya Pllack | Category: Poetry
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Aleya  Pollack    

English-­‐Analysis  

6.06.11  

English-­‐  Analysis  of  poem   Bushed  by  Wreck  Beach     This  poem,  Bushed  by  Earle  Birney,  is  from  the  collection  Ghost  in  the  Wheels:   Selected  poems.  The  poem  follows  an  evolution  process,  a  time  sequence  and  a   stream  of  consciousness.  There  is  a  constant  run-­‐on-­‐lines  in  between  each   stanza.  It  is  a  descriptive  narrative  poem.  Poem  is  written  with  an  observer  point   of  view.  This  poem  analysis  will  be  achieved  by  an  analysis  of  each  stanza.  It  is   composed  of  six  stanzas  with  a  common  theme,  which  is  man  versus  nature.   The  title  of  the  poem,  “Bushed”  has  two  different  meanings.  The  first  one  being   that  the  narrator  is  tiered.  The  second  one  could  be  referring  to  a  bush  that  can   be  large  areas  of  wilderness.  The  narrator  being  exhausted  is  lacking  of  strength   and  therefore  is  incapable  of  using  force  with  force.  It  could  also  mean  that  he   got  absorbed  by  the  “bush”,  or  the  wilderness,  which  for  seems  to  be  waiting  for   him  every  time  he  tries  something  new  as  the  poem  follows  a  time  frame  and  the   narrator  has  an  ambiguous  ending.     The  first  and  second  stanzas  do  not  follow  the  time  frame.  They  are  outside  of   time  adaptation.  By  the  end  of  the  second  stanza  he  starts  the  adaptation   process.   The  first  stanza  is  an  ideal  of  perfection,  a  dream.  The  narrator  invents  a   “rainbow”;  he  is  building  his  ideal  of  perfection.  The  rainbow  gives  reassurance   and  hope  to  his  situation  of  him  being  alone  against  the  nature  around  him.  His   hope  is  “shattered”  by  “lightning”  being  a  destructive  force  of  nature.  Leaving   him  with  something  tangible,  which  is  the  shattered  rainbow.  The  “lake-­‐lap”  has   a  material  connotation,  as  lake  is  qualified  as  an  object  on  something,  the   something  being  the  mountain.  This  leaves  the  narrator  with  a  shattered  dream.   In  stanza  two,  he  does  not  try  to  get  away  from  where  he  is  or  escape  from  where   he  is,  he  adapts.  He  is  determined  to  survive,  this  is  shown  with  the  adverb  “yet”.   By  adapting  he  tries  to  become  part  of  the  nature,  this  is  shown  by  the  narrator   wearing  quills  on  his  hatband.  There  is  a  slow  rhythm  in  this  stanza  given  by  the   “sh”  alliteration,  which  emphasizes  on  the  calm  of  the  present  situation  as  he  has   recovered  from  the  past  situation  and  learned  how  to  survive,  “learned  how  to   roast  porcupine  belly”  giving  him  now  the  ability  to  feed  himself  better.  He  is   starting  to  evolve.  This  marks  the  beginning  of  his  evolution.   In  stanza  three  he  starts  his  adaptation  and  starting  from  now  he  will  evolve.  The   narrator  saw  the  mountain  as  a  person,  alive.  It  is  shown  with  the  daily  routine   of  the  mountain  and  how  the  person  observing  the  situation  of  the  narrator   evaluates  the  situation.  This  lets  the  reader  assume  that  the  narrator  is  intruding   in  the  routine  of  the  mountain.  Whether  the  day  starts  with  in  sunshine  or  fog,   the  mountain  is  alive  with  messages  to  remind  him  that  he  is  weak  compared  to   everything  else  around  him,  that  he  is  unwelcomed  at  the  heart  of  nature.  This   stanza  emphasizes  the  fact  that  he  will  never  be  a  conqueror  but  a  prisoner.  It  is   show  in  the  poem  with  “sent  messages  […]  proclamations”,  these  messages  sent  

Aleya  Pollack    

English-­‐Analysis  

6.06.11  

every  morning  are  constant  warnings,  with  this  other  quote  “whether  it  […]  of   storm”  the  mountain  is  telling  the  narrator  that  where  ever  he  is  and  no  matter   the  environment  that  the  narrator  is  an  outsider  to  the  world  the  mountain  is  in.   the  situation  can  be  visualized  to  the  reader  with  “yellowed  bright  as  wood-­‐ columbine”,  there  is  also  two  different  senses,  tactile  and  auditive  which  allows   the  reader  to  feel  as  if  he/she  is  living  the  situation,  “fuzzed  moth  in  a  flannel  of   storm”.  The  author  used  in  this  stanza  a  personification  of  the  mountain,  “the   mountain  was  clearly  alive”.  This  personification  gives  out  the  feeling  of  power   coming  from  the  mountain,  that  the  mountain  in  its  self  is  powerful.   Stanza  four  is  the  next  step  in  the  evolution  process  of  this  poem.  the  first   sentence  is  what  gives  it  out,  “when  he  tried  his  eyes  on  the  lake”,  this  quote   contributes  to  his  adaptation.  The  narrator  is  shown  to  have  realized  that  the   lake  provides  food  as  well  and  comparing  the  ospreys  to  valkyries,  which  did  not   choose  the  hero  but  the  criminal.  The  criminal  being  the  fish,  “choosing  the  cut-­‐ throat”  method  to  survive  leaving  a  negative  side  to  the  adaptation  but  giving   proof  of  his  survival  skills.  The  adverb  “then”  provides  a  consequence  to  the   stanza.  The  consequence  being  that  survival  is  a  necessity.  The  stanza  ends  with   a  mythological  statement  ”night  smoke  rose  from  the  boil  of  the  sunset”  which   means  sun  in  water  and  water  boil.  This  leads  to  the  narrator  acquiring  a  skill,   the  skill  of  hunting  more  precisely  fishing.     Stanza  five  is  very  dark  it  is  qualified  with,  “moon  carved  unknown  totems”,   which  continues  the  mythological  sense  of  the  poem  in  a  nightmarish  feel  to  it.   Continuing  in  the  stanza,  it  gets  more  and  more  hostile  this  is  shown  by  “owls  in   the  beardusky  woods  derided”.  The  mountain  is  making  fun  of  the  narrator   proving  to  him  that  he  is  an  intruder  because  with  “moosehorned  cedars  […]  to   the  stars”  shows  very  well  that  he  is  trapped  and  that  he  could  be  attacked  at  any   moment.  “Moosehorned  cedars”  is  a  personification  of  cedars  and  “their  antlers   up  to  the  stars”  continues  the  mythological  part  of  this  poem  making  it  feel  as  if   what  the  narrator  is  living  actually  could  have  happened.  “Then”  is  used  in  this   stanza  as  a  consequence  and  the  consequence  in  this  stanza  is  that  there  is  no   escape  as  he  is  trapped  by  the  moosehorned  cedars.  Before  this  stanza  ends  the   author  writes  “he  knew  though  […]  to  an  arrowhead”  as  if  nature  was  preparing   war  against  the  narrator  and  the  stanza  ends  with  suspense  with  a    single  word   “poised”.       The  last  stanza  has  shorter  sentences  than  the  previous  stanzas.  It  can  also  refer   to  the  title  and  is  composed  of  internal  rhyming  with  “wait”  and  “great”.  But  this   stanza  leaves  the  reader  with  an  ambiguous  end,  “for  the  great  flint  to  come   singing  in  his  heart”.  We  are  not  sure  if  the  narrator  surrenders  or  dies.   In  this  poem,  the  length  of  the  sentences  can  transmit  the  amount  of  energy  the   narrator  has  through  out  the  poem.  There  is  no  punctuation,  which  gives  the   possibility  continuous  flowing  of  events  just  as  a  dream.  Through  out  the  whole   poem  there  is  the  same  structure  the  time  frame.  Through  this  poem  we  can   assume  the  mountain’s  actions  are  parallel  to  the  man’s  experiences.  

Aleya  Pollack    

 

English-­‐Analysis  

6.06.11  

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