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First Day at School

• The poem consists of three stanzas with varying verse lengths in each
• It uses a first-person narrator and lacks a rhyme scheme
• The vocabulary is childish, reflecting the narrator's fear and insecurity due to being away from their mother
• Personification occurs as expressions are taken literally, demonstrating a child-like interpretation
• The persona feels small and intimidated by other children who seem accustomed to school
• Rough games are portrayed through personification
• The line "Swallow you up" is a metaphor
• The persona is assumed to be a boy, though not explicitly stated
• Hyperbole presents the idea that other children "must have been born in uniform," etc
• Repetition of "railings" emphasizes the poem's childish tone
• The continuous use of questions indicates the student's fear and insecurity
• The poet misspells "lessin" to depict a young child
• Alliteration appears in "lessin looks like"
• Consonance is used in "sounds small and slimy"
• Literary devices throughout the poem evoke a nursery rhyme feel

Verse 18: They keep them in the glassrooms

• The persona's mistake of "glassrooms" for "classrooms" shows youthfulness
• The persona is too young and nervous to remember their name
• "Yellowwellies" are an example of the poem's childish vocabulary
• Knowing one's name at school equates to the usefulness of wearing "yellowwellies" in the rain
• The persona associates the teacher with wanting his/her mother for security
• Thinking the teacher makes tea is another example of childish vocabulary
• The poem presents a bleak, urbanized England
• Nature has been destroyed to the point that even common animals like rabbits are near extinction
• The repetition of "we," "which," and "the" creates excitement
• Rhetorical questions raise curiosity about why the rabbit needs lights, a wired fence, and might be under threat
• The rabbit is kept under surveillance with lighting and a fence
• Abundant technology is present, which may have complicated matters rather than helped
• The rabbit's presentation as a commodity
• Irony lies in the fanfare surrounding what is possibly the last rabbit in England
• Verse 37 uses caesura

Analysis of Poetic Devices

• Rhetorical questions such as "What has gone wrong?" reflect on what is wrong with the world and its people
• The central attraction, the rabbit, does not appear, resulting in disappointment for everyone
• The people watching this lonely rabbit are self-centered, and unconcerned with the rabbit's feelings.
• A short soliloquy is spoken by the rabbit
• Humans watch the rabbit for their own satisfaction and distraction
• The rabbit faces the end of its species
• Slow reader
• The poet suggests the boy struggles with reading but excels in other areas
• The persona is a young boy being read to by an adult
• The boy is disinterested in reading, gazing into the air, sighing, and shaking his head
• The poem is written from the boy's first-person perspective
• A simile compares the boy's reading to an old man who finds the mountains insurmountable
• The word "toys" indicates minimal effort in reading
• Metaphor is used in the verse "letting them go cold" when referring to words
• Simile compares the cold words to gristly meat
• Gristle means the inedible tissue in meat
• The persona lets the boy wriggle free as he is uninterested in reading
• The boy's freedom is likened to a fish returning to water
• Both the child's and fish's wriggling motions are metaphors

Continued Analysis of Literary Devices and Themes

• A colt, or young horse, shying away from the bit symbolizes a resistance to discipline
• The poet uses a metaphor to express the boy's resistance to reading
• The fireworks are compared to fiery flowers, the use of a poem
• Comparison is made through color and the way they both rise like a flower or how like a flower closes at night
• Alliteration is found in the phrase "fiery flowers."
• The word "burst" is an example of onomatopoeia
• The fireworks fall to the ground like burning showers, which is a metaphor, displaying colors like crimson, blue, and white "buds which are flowers still need to bloom" is a simile linked to the fireworks
• The fireworks referred as a miracle is a metaphor
• The word unfolds refers to the movement of the firework just like the petals of a flower
• The catherine wheel is likened to whirling marigolds through continuing the flower simile
• Catherine wheel is a metaphor for the marigold color orange which represents the color of the fireworks
• Reeves uses the metaphor to describe the multicolor fireworks which burst open and make the sky look like an orchard
• One imagined filled with apples, oranges and other fruit
• Trees are magical and reside inside orchards and form magical firework trees

The Sea Analysis

• The trees in the orchard are magical. This extends the metaphor of the sky being an orchard with fireworks
• The audience watches the fireworks with "gazing eyes"
• Reeves uses an extended metaphor to compare the sea to a hungry dog
• Imagines the grey sea of the English shores and the Atlantic Ocean by noting the "giant and grey" dog
• Describes the dog rolling on the beach all day, mirroring waves rolling across the beach
• Lines 4 and 5 feature enjambment
• "Clashing" is an example of onomatopoeia
• Appeals to the listeners sense of hearing
• Rhyme: rumbling and tumbling
• Internal rhyme: Rumbling and tumbling . An onomatopoeia
• The 7th verse repeats the word "bones," typically associated with dogs
• Verses 8-10: "The giant sea dog moans, licking his greasy paws"
• Moans- an onomatopoeia
• The rough sea and the crashing waves create a sounds
• The dog licking its greasy paws is connected to the sea
• Verse 11: The night wind is described as "roaring," which is a metaphor
• It presents an onomatopoeia where to creates the sound of wind on a stormy night
• In verse 11, the moon being described as and metaphor is said to "rock in the stormy clouds"
• Creates a grey sky which represents the dark clouds and a moon behind it
• "Snuffs and sniffs"-onomatopoeia and consonance (repetition of the "s" sound)

Continued Analysis of The Sea and Night Mail

• Verse 14: "the dog shaking his wet fur coming out of the sea"
• Verse 15 includes alliteration in "howls and hollos"
• One can also notice a consonance on the I sound in howls hollos long and loud
• Both howls and hollos are onomatopoeia
• Diverse literary devices focus on sound
• The movements and sounds are credited to violent waves
• "Reedy tune" indicates the wind calmed down
• The dog is relaxed and resting soundly means it is laying with its head between its paws
• Repetition of letter "s" creates onomatopoeia
• The s sound creates a sense of serenity for the reader
• Transition between the first, second, and third stanzas reflect the change in season and the dog's behavior
• Night mail is made up of 12 stanzas, where 8 consist of a rhyming couplet, while the remaining consist of four, which feature different number of lines
• Night mail, delivered by train with staff, composed 87 years ago
• Crossing boarders between England and Scotland
• Kinds of past one can find include cheques, postal orders, letters for rich people, letters for poor people, letters addressed to the shop in the corner and the girl next door
• Lines which show personification: Past cotton-grass and moorland boulder Shovelling white steam over her shoulder
• In verse 5 The trains loud noises clashes against the silence of the British countryside, showing onomatopoeia, in the word Snorting
• Personification: The coaches on the train are described as blank faced as there is nothing drawn or written on the exterior of the coaches

"Night Mail" Stanza Analysis and "We Refugees"

• Use of sibilance in these verses mimics the sound of steam
• Stanza 9: Dawn freshens, Her climb is done./ Down towards Glasgow she descends,/ Towards the steam tugs yelping down a glade of cranes/ Towards the fields of apparatus, the furnaces/ Set on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen./ All Scotland waits
• Indicates sequence of rhyming couplets
• Suggests metaphor like “Dawn freshens”
• Consonance in "dawn freshens, her climb is done/ down towards Glasgow she descends" relates to the D sound
• Transitions include nighttime to dawn, uphill to downhill, and countryside to city
• Anaphora starts with the same word or words
• Heading towards Glasgow from the countryside
• Imagery- on the dark plain like gigantic chessmen is a metaphor
• "Fields of Apparatus"- Large areas of land filled with a lot of tools to do work
• Letters: Thanks from banks, joy from girl and boy, bills, invitations, applications, declarations, gossip, news, snaps, condolences from uncles, aunts, cousins, and Scotland from the South of France, letters hue
• Stanza 10 serves as Auden’s way of describing letters delivered where people are dreaming
• Zephaniah starts the poem personal
• First Stanza claims come from a place where is shot for his song
• The poet seems to suggest that there is no freedom of speech

"We Refugees" continued and Caged Bird Analysis

• Locals are tortured by others in land

• The people that torture or hurt each other depleted the land.

• People that are bullied for skin as zephaniah was bullied may become a refugee

• Zephaniah explains his homeland is prejudice against others

• Hates ones skin so they ban poetry to prevent freedom

• “beautiful” is compared to hate, don’t like, ban which provides contrast

• Poetry can be what makes people revolt Stanza 3- Girls cannot go to school or believe in their own

• Starts with same opening line

• Lines per Stanza- irregular, rhyme and tone

• First stanza- free bird flies over the world in peace

• Personification- bird leaps on back of wind

• The bird uses its wings to fly anywhere it wants with constrain

• Stanza 2- bird cant fly freely due to restrictions that dont allow him

• Metaphor- bars of cage

• Personification- can only fly in the wind

• Stanza 3 Sings out for what it wants but the caged bird is trapped

• Sings out to be free

• Stanza 4-Free bird fly's throughout wherever he wants

• Only stanza with rhyme scheme of AABB

• He is in control of everything

“Caged Bird” Continued

• The free bird's thought is described through the sighing trees and the soft winds- (trade wins soft”)
• Reminds us of happiness compared to the trauma of the caged bird
• Personification is to be singing- sighing through the onomatopoeia - Trees said to be sighing- the trees are sad Imagine the birds flying through the trees The warm lawn The next cage is now standing on a grave Metaphor- freedom is not what the cage bird is Personification- his shadow shouts, Alliteration- his shadow shouts.

"Ozymandias"

• Tone: pride and power, mood: despair, fear, and intimidating
• The power is not permanent but the power art and destruction is
• The persona is what he was told reflecting a historical moment
• the assonance of the sound is in “a”
• The sibilance highlights the sound of the desert
• The vast land is irony because it was once something and it is now nothing.
• The theme between hourglass links them together
• The sand is the fragments that are lifted by time.
• Statue breaks down and is reflected by the caesurra of that Allieration: the sound reflects harshness of the role Paradox- opposite is what the rule thought Double meaning double and triple

The ruler thought that his confidence was good but really it made light his power with ruins