hi there Nessa from studyclix here you're listening to studyclix explains our Channel dedicated to bring new Junior cycle and leaving certain notes in podcast form for this podcast we've teamed up with Lara Daly an expert teacher who's going to take you through everything you need to know about the poet polymion and her poems that are on the living search English syllabus so without further Ado the next voice you're going to hear is Laura's enjoy [Music] thank you hi everyone and welcome to this studyclix podcast on the poet Paula Meehan my name is Laura I'm an English teacher from Dublin and I've been teaching leaving third English for over 15 years and I'm going to be taking you through an exam focused overview of meehan's work today she is one of Ireland's most popular contemporary poets and a personal favorite of mine so ensure that you have pens at the ready to be taking down all the H1 top tips as you listen just like in a living sword essay I'm going to follow a structure to give this podcast coherence first of all I'm going to tell you a little bit about means background her cultural and educational context is about I will highlight the key themes that occur as a result of this context and how these themes will most likely inform the style of question that comes up on the leaving search after that then we'll look at the overarching structure that your essay should follow and this section is transferable to all other posts on your course then with possible exam questions in mind we will go through each of the 10 poems on the course with a view to condensing them into bite-size elements to make them easy for you to remember these bite size elements will include looking at themes key images in language stylistic features and tone so let's start with looking at meehan's life no artist creates in a vacuum they're very much products of their social and historical contexts so it's important to know a little bit of biographical information about The Poets on your course and a top tip is to include this information in the introduction of your essay and Scattered sparingly throughout your answer it adds an extra layer of knowledge that will impress an examiner so what do we know about mean she has certainly led a varied and colorful life she was born in Dublin in 1955 raised in the North Inner City her family will work in class and very poor and she lived for a time in a tournament on Sean Mcdermott Street Meehan had a love of words from a young age and particularly loved the oral tradition as she said herself that books were a rare commodity when she was young we see this oral tradition come alive in the colloquial language we encounter in her poems such as in the opening lines of Hearth lesson despite a difficult time at school against the Arts Meehan went on to study English History and classical civilization at Trinity College this was a phenomenal achievement at the time because of her working class background Meehan also traveled widely so although Dublin is an important character within her poetry we see this Wanderlust coming through also particularly in her poem the pattern it's important to understand the Dublin of the 1980s that Meehan returned to in order to understand her poetry Dublin was in the grip of a heroin epidemic and Ireland was in the midst of a homelessness crisis and recession so the socio-economic Divide was widening as well as this the continuing oppression of the Catholic Church coupled with the repressive reproduction laws meant that socially Ireland was a very repressed place Meehan struck by these injustices became involved in activism and much of her writing from this time deals with these social issues she strongly believes that poetry was a tool for change she believed that it could be used to give a voice to voiceless and marginalized people one reason you may want to mention in your essay why you like her is her accessibility to the modern reader many of the issues she explores are in many ways still relevant today drug epidemics homelessness issues around gender and socioeconomic inequality are all still important social issues not to mention that our poems also deal with family conflicts perhaps an all too familiar topic a top tip to remember is that examiners will look for a personal response from you about your poet so including a line or two about why you enjoyed studying them goes a long way means poems are filled with personal anecdotes and are openly autobiographical for the family community and dry humor so now if you're taking notes here's a few key bullet points from her biography to jot day 1. a sense of place permeates her work two poverty class and social justice are key themes three she explores women's issues and their oppression in the confines of a patriarchal and religious Society four she is interested in the idea of family and community five her poetry is infused with the element of the oral tradition including colloquial language and people's voices remember leaving sir questions will probably center around these themes now we'll move to the third section of the podcast how to create an overarching structure to your essay a top tip is to always be thinking of the overall coherence of your essay remember the pclm marking scheme at all times P is for purpose am I answering the question asked C is for coherence am I linking my responses coherently L is the marks awarded for language Lively phrasing vocabulary syntax Etc and M is for mechanics spelling and grammar purpose coherence and language are all 30 of the essays marks and the remaining 10 percent is for mechanics when you're approaching your individual analysis of the poems in your leaving cert essay a good visual to have in your mind's eye is an inverted triangle what I mean by this is that you will move in your discussion from a broad overview of the poem to a more focused analysis of the imagery and techniques and finally you will be focusing on specific words and language of importance in the poem this analysis is a subtle drilling down that always begins with an overview a common error I see when correcting leaving certain poetry essays is a student who is so enthusiastic to show their knowledge of quotation and what individual images mean that they forget to give a bit of an overview of the poll or to contextualize it at all before launching into imagery a top tip is to pretend The Examiner has no knowledge of the poet finally a great structural technique to use that will make your essay stand out as exceptional is to use a quote to bookend your answer and by this I mean in your introduction and in your conclusion particularly the last line of the essay if you quote something Meehan or a Critic has said about her work this gives a lovely structure and adds greatly to the essay if you have your pen there I'll give you two quotes now that you might like to write down to bookend your essay the first is me in speaking about the vital importance of poetry she says that quote two lines can save a life while Dr Thompson remarks that Meehan quote gives voice to her people and places two very easy lines to learn that will have a big impact so let's get going with the real business now we've covered style let's begin to look at the content and going through the poems individually at the end of each poem I will give a recap of the important things to remember from that film so have your pens at the ready in the exam you will need to write about four poems in depth and refer briefly to another two for a H1 skip the poems you haven't covered with your teacher in class 1. the exact moment I became about it seems apt to begin with the exact moment I became about as the poem is a reminiscence of meehan's early school days and a cutting comment from her primary school teacher Miss Shannon the form is unrimed tersets three line stanzas short stanzas and short lines perhaps mirroring the beginnings of a language learner a young person tentatively finding their voice in writing there is also a lot of enjoyment in the poem illustrating that the poem is almost like a stream of Consciousness because it is a memory an insult from Miss Shannon has stuck with me in and influenced her path in life the title so often overlooked by students runs into the first line of the poem and pinpoints this exact moment when meehan's path towards art and poetry began in the opening stance that the teacher is half obscured by a cloud of chalk she is physically and metaphorically a shadowy embodiment of Education to the working-class girls before her for them education seems intangible in many ways opaque and therefore unattainable Meehan gives voices to people within her poems and in this poem it is the voice of Miss Shannon pontificating attend to your books girls or mark my words you'll end up in the sewing Factory at the time despite indignation for young men but with hindsight there is the realization that there was an element of Truth in her Jive the teacher was right the poem explores ideas about class and the cyclical and oppressive nature of poverty a common theme in meehan's poetry for a lot of the girls in the class their mothers worked in the factory as did mihan's Aunt as an adult looking back Meehan is able to more fully understand how Miss Shannon's words end up robbed the labor of its dignity yet the poem's key simile of the women trusts like chickens on a conveyor belt acknowledges that although the work has intrinsic value not all those who worked are valued in society Factory labor can rob women of their individual potential the image is repugnant particularly the word trust which means tied up and it highlights how restricted the women really were the final image of importance that you must mention is the final stanza words could pluck you leave you naked your lovely shiny feathers all gone there are two interpretations of this image choose one or for H1 you can mention both the first is that the condescending words of Miss Shannon have harmed the girls by exposing the weakness the cycle of poverty that they seem unable to escape from another interpretation is that the words are the words of meehan's poems the creation of art is an act of vulnerability exposing your inner thoughts and feelings to an audience and as a result the very Act of writing poetry leaves her vulnerable and exposed the overall tone is somewhat meditative the passing years have taken the sting out of Miss Shannon's words and Meehan can recall and critique them in a controlled way so to recap themes the cycle of poverty education as an escape from poverty and the act of writing as an act of vulnerability key images The Cloud of chalk what Miss Shannon says the simile of the chickens on the conveyor belt the plucked feathers in the final stanza stylistic features enchantment Miss Shannon's voice tone meditative and critical of society two the pattern let's move now to the pattern another poem where Meehan looks back on moments from her childhood this poem is specifically about meehan's mother and it's important to note that she had a difficult relationship with her mother this is a particularly long poem and it can make it more manageable to divide it up into sections in your mind then choose one image from each section to ensure you've hit all the important points for the exam I have divided the poem up Loosely below remember this is just as a study Aid do not mention sections in the exam so section one would be stanza one to three remembering her fraught relationship with her mother and her early death section 2 would be stanza four to six memory of her mother polishing the floor with her children around her Section 3 would be stanza's seven to ten her mother patching the red dress for her and remembering when she wore herself when she was young and her Granddad dragging her in from the street section 4 stanza's 11 to 12 Meehan wanting to explore the wider World Section 5 stands 13 a photo of her mother in the Phoenix Park and section 6 stands 14-17 her mother knitting by the fire me and holding the wool being reeled back in by her mother the opening of the poem reveals a tension between the mother and daughter and this is the theme of the poem means desire to rebel against a prescribed path carved out by her mother the metaphorical pattern of the title she wants to move beyond the oppressive class boundaries she feels and snared her mother and she's a different life a more exotic one one that would carry her to Zanzibar Bombay and the land of the ethiops the poem is an elegy in Section 1 she Mourns the loss of her mother when at the early age of 42 she had it all for God knows where there's so much to unpack in this line alone the sadness evoked by the young age of the mother when she passed the tone of regret and loss and of course the colloquial language we so often see in men's work lending an informality a conversational tone rooting the poem in the spoken word Meehan ruse the fact that she never got a chance to get to know her properly as an adult without tags like mother wife sister daughter but she also Mourns the life her mother never got to lead oppressed as she was by class poverty and indeed her role as a mother in section 2 she questions whether her mother ever got a chance to know herself with the list of rhetorical questions she wonders during her menial tasks like shining the floor did she net a glimmer of her true self there is a startling image that one of the few things me and inherited from her mother was the sting of her hand across my face in one of our Wars the word Wars here illustrating the truly combative and violent nature of their arguments a generational violence that has an almost casual nature to it this is seen later in the poem in Section 3 when the grandfather dragged the mother in by the hair for secretly meeting meehan's father he shoved my whole head under the kitchen tap scrubbed every Speck of lipstick and mascara off my face the direct speech used in the poem a common Trope of means brings the mother's voice and her personality to life in the fourth section the key imagery lies in the pattern me and is making for herself beyond the domestic scene of the mother she was sizing up the world beyond our flat patch by patch she is breaking the pattern by creating a new one in the fifth section the image of the photo of her mother on a bench in the Phoenix Park is important because in the photo it seems as if she had been born to formal Gardens this idea that the mother had so much unrealized potential haunts me in as well as her mother who seems wrapped entirely in her own shadow the world Beyond her already a dream already lost the tone of sadness here evokes great pity in the reader the final section of the poem juxtaposes perfectly the two contrasting personalities of mother and daughter once again color is important her mother favorite sensible Shades moss green mustard beige while Meehan dreamed of a robe of color the fireplace another recurring image in meehan's poems becomes a place where the mother unsuccessfully tries to tame her daughter's Wild Spirit Meehan uses playful similes to capture this contest of Wills as her mother knits in jungmian plays with the wool her mother drags her back down flew like a fish in the pools of pulsing light she'd reel me firmly home the final lines of the Crux of the entire poem and should always be quoted in the exam one of these days I must teach you to follow a pattern she gives her mother the final words of the poem but she didn't obey them the tone changes throughout the poem but mostly it is a poem of regret regret that her mother had such a hard life and that they never got to know each other properly so to recap themes mother-daughter relationships carving out your own path in life not simply following a restrictive pattern from the past key images The Sting of the mother's hand the rhetorical question did she net a glimmer of her true self the Grandad pulling the mother's hair mending the red dress a symbol of poverty and an act of love the Exotic lands the photo in the Phoenix Park mother knitting by the fire daughter at her feet stylistic features the mother's voice tone regression three heart lesson the next poem Hearth lesson like many of meehan's poems is rooted in a place in the opening stanzas we are placed in Sean Mcdermott Street and the colloquial phrases money to burn burning a hole in your pocket act as a catalyst to bring me him back to her childhood and to the trauma of her parents arguing she uses Zeus and hero the king and queen of the gods as a sort of tongue-in-cheek metaphor for her ordinary parents the imagery draws on meehan's knowledge of the Greek gods from her time studying classical civilization at Trinity and yet there may be an earnestness in the imagery too Hearth lesson is an exploration of family Discord Through The Eyes of a child and to a young child parents can often seem Godlike in that in a home they wield the most power and they also dictate the overriding mood and atmosphere of a home the Hearth usually a place of warmth becomes the Battleground in the flash where Zeus and Hera battle it out the classical illusion is replaced with the language of gambling as the parents trade insults and accusations she'll see his fancy man and raise him Cosmos the father accuses the mother of adultery the mother accuses the father of being absent and gambling all their money away in sharp contrast with the earlier grandiose imagery of Zeus and Hera Meehan describes herself in the quirky metaphor I'm net umpire and Court as she sits in the middle of this argument not fully understanding most balls are lobbed over my head but understanding the root cause marital Discord and the effects of poverty and relationships are the key themes of this Lively poem even then I can tell it was money where the lack of it day after day at the root of the bitter words the poem concludes with a vivid memory meehan's father handed up his wages only for the mother to throw the lot into the fire what follows is a beautiful image of the color it is important to pay attention to color in poems here the burning money lends color to the Dismal scene transforming it the Flames were blue and pink and green a marvelous sight an alchemical scene the flames in the chimney breast are compared to trapped exotic birds the simile exposing a truth seen also in the pattern that her mother in particular was trapped by her circumstances keep this in mind you can use this idea to link the two poems remembering that cohesion in your essay is Paramount to achieve a H1 she also has the last astonishing word another element we see in the pattern when Meehan uses her mother's voice in direct speech to have the final word the overwhelming tone in the final stanzas when the embattled parents seem to have run out of steam is of resignation There Is No Escape From the poverty whatever money there is is not enough and never will be they are not Hira and Zeus the bitterness of their impoverished reality permeates the poem so to recap themes the cycle of poverty and the impact it has on relationships key images in language Hira and Zeus the tennis language the language of gambling the money burning stylistic features the classical Illusions her parents voices tone combative moving to resignation four the statue of the Virgin acronard speaks the next poem we're going to look at the Statue of the virgin of groundard speaks also creates a bitter mood with its dark subject matter in the exam it's important to contextualize this poem without tipping the balance too much into a history lesson as you know the exam unfortunately is a Race Against Time you have roughly five minutes to spend on your introduction and five minutes on your conclusion that leaves 10 minutes per poem 50 minutes in total this poem in a broader sense deals with the Stranglehold that the Catholic church had on Irish Society to the detriment of women in this Society to illustrate this Meehan uses the harrowing true story of Anne Lovett a 15 year old girl who concealed her pregnancy and gave birth on a cold November night in 1984 to a baby boy beside a grotto of the Virgin Mary both subsequently died and had caused outrage and shame that this could happen Mian tells a story from the point of view of the Virgin Mary at times veering into Blasphemous territory with the Virgin Mary denouncing her virginity and craving to be incarnate incarnate maculus and tussled in a hornied bed this sexualization of the Virgin Mary is the very antithesis of what she represents in Catholic Doctrine as the title suggests The Narrative of the poem traces a monologue of the Virgin Mary she discusses the passing Seasons as she observes them from her place in The Grotto the November night with seeds of ice at the opening of the poem eventually leads her to recall the plight of Anne Lovett on a similar dark Winter's evening on a night like this I remember the child who came with 15 Summers to her name the opening imagery is ominous with the onomatopoeia of the howling wind and the trees cavort in agony Wild Things Gone to Earth all of this imagery of Nature and Chaos foreshadows the awful events detailed later in the poem an important part of the poem is the scathing comments the Virgin Mary makes about Society particularly patriarchal society and how religion is often invoked to justify violence where men hunt each other and invoke the various names of God as blessing on their death tactics she also accuses the people of the town of turning a blind eye to the realities around them a top tip in revising a poet is to anticipate the types of questions that are likely to come up in the leaving search mean is opposed with a social conscience and therefore the question may focus on this the statue of the virgin of groundard speaks lends itself perfectly to such a question she is deeply critical of Irish societal attitudes the repetition of tucked up in the poem highlights the willful ignorance of Everyday People towards girls like Anne through the voice of the Virgin Mary mean captures the lack of empathy and compassion that Society exhibited and though she cried out to me in extremists I did not move I didn't lift a finger to help her the Virgin Mary examines her position as a deified figure in such a heartless Society they fit me to a myth of a man crucified and they call me mother of all this grief and she appears to reject it the Virgin Mary of meehan's poem is not the one we see represented in the Catholic Church the tone is unfeeling and detached she lacks maternal empathy to help a child in need the simile their prayers fly up like Sparks from a bonfire that blaze a moment then wink out illustrates the futile nature of prayer and Faith she has sexual desires and appears to be a pagan praying in the final stanza to the sun o Sun molten mother of us all hear me and have pity the final line resigns with self-centeredness and the mood we are left with is one of utter desolation so to recap themes patriarchy our shared responsibility for the damage religion does to society key images and language the passing Seasons the November night and nature and Chaos the unfeeling Virgin Mary Mary's sexual desires the oblivious town and the desperate image of Anne asking for help and being abandoned stylistic features the unconventional voice of the Virgin Mary tone bitter callous judgmental 5. prayer for the children of longing the Desolation seen at the end of the Statue of the virgin of granard speaks is also seen in the next poem we are going to look at prayer for the children of longing this poem is another elegy commemorating the young people of Dublin's inner city who died as a result of drug addiction during the heroin epidemic of the 1980s mean was commissioned to write it and read it at the lighting of the Christmas tree on Buckingham Street the poem has the language and chant-like rhythm of a prayer as indicated by the title but the deity she appeals to throughout is the Christmas tree great tree grant us the clarity of ice she asks the tree for Comfort silence and quiet she Longs for this silence to catch the breath of the children of longing she wants to somehow save them those children already lost to addiction this description of addiction as a longing is particularly poignant the reader questions what longing did the drugs alleviate for these young people and how did Society let them down by not providing for them as we should have this is perfectly depicted by the image the streets That Couldn't shelter them the streets that promised them everything that delivered nothing the personification of the streets here as a menacing influence is particularly effective the short Sharp Images depicting The Savage nature of addiction is chilling in the poem the scream the siren the onomatopoeia here adds to that chilling tone which is evoked throughout the refrain here at the heart of the winter Megan does Something Beautiful in this poem which is to venerate those most often demonized in our society addicts who have succumbed to their addiction she uses anaphora of let their names let their names let their names contribute to the sense that these young people should not be forgotten we owe them that at least so to recap themes addiction reframing how we see addiction key images and language the personification of the streets the great tree The Heart of the City the heart of the winter the respectful silence and quiet stylistic features the onomatopoeia the repetition the anaphora tone reverent regretful sad 6. my father perceived as a vision of Saint Francis the next poem is another poem about meehan's family this time though it is about her father and it is a much more forgiving portrait than the one depicted in hearth lesson there's an intimacy in this poem from the outset because of the images from the comfortable family home my brother's room full of ties and sweaters and secrets she listens to her father as he goes about his early morning domestic routine I heard him rake the ash from the Great when she sees him in the garden the colloquial language means so often uses interrupts her observations what's he at as alluded to in the title the theme of this poem is how our perceptions of people are in flux she admits she is anchored to an image of her father from the past he was older than I had reckoned until confronted with the physical realities of her aging parent in the sibilant image for the first time I saw the stoop of his shoulder saw that his leg was stiff then later in the poem he is once again transformed by his actions the early morning ritual of feeding the birds imbues him with the renewed Youth and vigor deserving of adulation he was suddenly radiant a perfect vision of Saint Francis made whole made young again in a fingless garden we've seen this type of juxtaposition before in hearth lesson when Zeus and Hira are in Sean Mcdermott Street trading insults and here Saint Francis is in a fingers garden feeding the birds this sense of place pervading her poems Roots me in an Irish context she stands in contrast to the likes of Dickinson or Plath whose poems are more abstract and find their universality in that abstraction Meehan finds her universality in the ordinary and the everyday people and places in the final stanza the urban or should I say Suburban landscape collides with the natural world as birds come flocking to be fed by her father Saint Francis is the Patriot state of animals and her father takes on this spiritual Persona in this ordinary Act of benevolence the remarkable vividness of the image of the sun cresting O'Reilly's chimney at the moment her father threw up his hands is an image of benediction and love there is a sense of ambiguity how much do we really know about the people in our lives even those closest to us this small act of kindness by meehan's father bathes him in new light for her this theme of renewal permeates the poem so to recap have the pens at the ready themes renewal aging our perspectives on people key images in language the comparison with Saint Francis the birds the Sun questing the chimney stylistic features the colloquial language tone intimate sense of awe at the small acts of kindness 7. buying Winkles buying Winkles is a lyric poem A Tale of late night childhood Adventure through the streets of Dublin it has allusions to the quest motif of classical literature and the tone is more light and playful than some of her poems on the course me and the center by Winkles a type of shellfish by her mother and although warned in the opening lines hurry up now and don't be talking to strange men on the way the streets hold little Menace in the eyes of the girl and the overall atmosphere is one of warmth and the vibrancy of life that existed in the tournaments the poem acts in opposition to stereotypes held by the tenements and their occupants and they are remembered with tenderness by the poet she shows us the lives of men and women of her childhood her mother and the other women are tending children staying at home or working while the men are out socializing and drinking Megan enjoys the freedom of the Expedition and her simple straightforward language reflects the voice of the child even in the rain I was happy there are lovely images familiar to all childhoods dotted throughout the poem her Dash from the ghosts on the stair or the invisibility of a child as she would weave a glad path through men heading out for the night she envies the adults their grown-up lives when she catches a glance through the door of the pub I envied each soul in the hot interior the poem is filled with contrasting light and darkness the blown eyeball on the stair the moon the light from the pub the simile of the Winkles themselves like blue little night skies the final image of the Torches sibilance is another important technique employed by Meehan we often tend to think of sibilance as creating a menacing tone but here the s's lend a lovely softness throughout the poem creating this cozy feeling as we are immersed in the scene the Winkles represent something exotic in the impoverished landscape of the tournaments and Meehan is only too happy to seek them out the closing simile of the poem again touches on the Charles naivety her prize filling her with pride she has accomplished her mission I'd bear the newspaper twists bulging fat with wrinkles proudly home like torches so to recap themes childhood Adventure the vibrancy of tenement life gendered roles of her childhood key imagery and language the Winkles light and darkness stylistic features colloquial language the voice of her mother and the Winkle seller assonance and alliteration lend a musicality tone excitement at the end pride pride of her area and proud of her accomplishment 8. Cora anti this poem is yet another elegy divided in three sections it is a beautiful tribute to the indomitable Spirit of her aunt her mother's sister the poem's appeal also lies in the universality of its subject matter someone going through illness particularly cancer is something a lot of readers can relate to the idiosyncrasies of Cora's personality are evident from the outset staring death down with a bottle of morphine in one hand a bottle of Jameson in the other the harsh alliterative D sound mirroring the fact that Korra is made of hard stuff this opening section of the poem deals with the answer attitude towards her terminal cancer and in doing so it focuses very much on the personification of death mihan describes her aunt's relationship to death as a sort of reluctant courtship laughing teasing and grinning at him sadly she eventually succumbs to his advances it was time to go and leave her in the arms of death who desired herself but her irascible spirit is what shines through the imagery both irreverent and edifying at the same time scourge of Croydon tram drivers and High Street doctors on her motorized invalid scooter the second section is a flashback to korra's Youth and her mother and sister sewing sequins to her dress for her 21st birthday Meehan uses the vibrant similes to capture the red of the scene a color of Youth and coming of age sequins red is the lips of maids as Blood on the bed sheet me into something unusual in this poem that we don't see elsewhere that is worth mentioning she writes about the fact that she is writing the poem in a poem this red pen on this white paper I've snatched from the flux to write this poem we are made aware of the suddenness of her artistic inspiration as she writes like many of me and spells this has a feminist Edge and we see this in the naming of the matriarchal line her grandmother her mother and her aunts and her realization of their vibrancy only reaching her in adulthood she uses a metaphor to compare them to Stars the light of those Stars only reaching me now final section explores the theme of immigration from the point of view of those left behind we see the poet has grieved her aunt twice because she left for England shortly after her 21st birthday the sequence left scattered around the house act like a trail for her a way to recall her aunt's presence all that year I hunted sequins in the house the final image of an immigrant soul is poignant and loving we empathize with meehan's loss a loss keenly relevant to a country with so wider diaspora so to recap themes love immigration a community of women key images and language personification of death sequence the ant on her motorized scooter stylistic features alliteration color red tone humor admiration love grief 9. death of a field death of a field is yet another poem with the social commentary and it is about the loss of green spaces for the development of 44 houses the poem is filled with bitterness Meehan describes how we lose so much more than just a field we lose the nature that fills the field and the future of that nature we lose our connection to the land the field itself is lost the morning it becomes the site repetition is an important technique in the poem the words memory and lust are repeated throughout as the poet tries to capture what she knows will be destroyed and the memory of the field disappears with its Flora the use of anaphora is another key technique that is important to mention in the exam in the eighth stanza she lists all the Flora and Fauna that will be destroyed when the houses are built and the chemical cleaning products that will replace them the end of dandelion and the start of Flesh this creates a particularly oppressive atmosphere in this part of the poem before the inevitability of the construction Meehan goes once more at night Barefoot to know the field through the soles of my feet she craves connection with what will soon be lost that I might possess it or it possess me the poem is a stark warning to humanity about the natural world and our relationship to it so to recap teams ecological Destruction for human benefit loss of connection to the land key images and language the Flora and Fauna The Familiar brand names memory and loss stylistic features anaphora the contrast between nature and the chemicals repetition tone despair bitterness grief 10. them Ducks died for Ireland the final poem in the course is the sonnet them Ducks died for Ireland and it is a meditation on Those whom history has forgotten the irreverent epigraph serves as a reminder that many were sacrificed during the 1916 Easter Rising home opens with an image of startling Beauty Time slides slowly down the sash window puddling in light on open boards the soft sibilance adding to the atmospheric nature of the image of the condensation on the window pane the metaphor of Saint Stephen's Green as a great long exhaling and the in German throughout lends to the slow Medicine of the atmosphere as Meehan is reminded of the smoke and fire during the rising she explores had the passing of time means we can now remember those overlooked during the conflict when we've licked the wounds of History wounds of War will salute the stretcher Bearer the nurse in white the ones who picked up the pieces who endure her final image is that the breath mark on the window pane is perhaps as fragile as our statues commemorating heroes in bronze and Stone so to recap themes commemoration War passing time and changing perspectives key images in language the green the nurse the window pane the statues in bronze and stone stylistic features compound or Port Manta words blood price moon set in German conclusion now we've recapped all of the poems a final tip by preparing for the Poetry section which is 12.5 percent of the overall exam so write a sample essay go over the essay with the highlighter anytime you see a word of poetic terminology or a quote from the poet highlight it by poetic terminology I mean theme image simile metaphor personification all the sound techniques alliteration assonance sibilance onomatopoeia or words like hyperbole contrast Etc if your essay is covered in highlighter you are on track for H1 so to conclude Meehan is a fantastic poet relatable accessible Yet full of depth her sense of social justice her colloquial voice her naming of places all contribute to poems brimming with vibrancy and relevance I hope you've enjoyed the podcast and this recap of me and and best of luck in the exam