Comparative Analysis

“Poetry is the exquisite expression of exquisite expressions” is what Joseph Rouex thinks about the art of poetry. In this paper I will be comparing two poems, The Rope and That Day. I will explain my opinion of the themes, techniques, and important points. I will discuss the differences and similarities in techniques such as rhythm, line breaks, metaphors, symbols, connotations, sound and figurative language.

The theme in the poem That Day by David Kherdian is the author now has a strong bond with his father that he has never been able to experience before. The second stanza shifts over from the first one to insinuate that the mood has changed and that he will never forget that day. The setting is stated in the poem, they are playing softball in the street. His father comes home from work and decides to play with the children. He now has a special bond with his father that is now stronger that he ever imagined. In the poem he uses the metaphor, “The lines of their lives were sewn from a tougher fabric than the son had previously known.” Apparently the father and son, or just the father moved from a different country, because his father was not allowed to play the game of softball.

I was quite confused the first few times that I read the poem The Rope by Patricia Dobler. The Poem starts off with the author waking up to their voices, being the parents. She symbolizes their strained relations ship as a rope being pulled tight without any slack in it. Even though they have been in the “swing” of things for a while, she still seems to want the life she is living. The irony of the poem is that they fight and have problems but at the end she just smiles about it. All she has ever wanted is a family. The font changes throughout the poem suggesting that the mood is unsteady. She uses a simile “picked over like beans or old bills.”

In both The Rope and That Day, both themes are family oriented. In That Day they share a special bond for the first time, and in The Rope they are losing a bond that was once shared and are now just going through the motions of everyday tasks. The authors use different techniques to express their feelings about a bond between family members. Patricia chose a darker mood than David. David’s poem was a little more captivating while The Rope led us to believe the family was simply content with the life they were living. However, both poems exhibit an abundant amount of emotion.

The comparisons between the two poems show the different things that satisfy family members with different backgrounds. The similarities in the poems are that both poems are a personal expression of something that has impacted their life. C. Day Lewis once said, “No good poem, however confessional it may be, is just a self-expression.”

References:

Think Exist, http://thinkexist.com/quotation/no_good_poem-however_confessional_it_may_be-is/201458.htmlThink Exist, http://thinkexist.com/quotation/poetry_is_the_exquisite_expression_of_exquisite /146387.html