Flames And Dangling Wire Journey Analysis

"An Individuals process of discovery can be provocative and confronting but it can ultimately lead to new perspectives of ourselves and others around us" (Robert Grey and related text) (900 words)
Discoveries for individual can be provocative and confronting in many different ways. This often leads the individual to develop new perspective about themselves or others around them. In Robert Greys poems, this is demonstrated a numerous amount of times, through the use of metaphors, similes, descriptive language and many more language techniques. The Poems that this is most evident in are "Flames and Dangling Wire", "Late Ferry". The speaker contemplates the fragility of nature and how urbanisation is used as a justified means to ignore the consequences
This is implicated through the extended metaphor that society is actually 'hell'. For example, ' it is an always burning dump', which exhibits a constant fuel for fires. The speaker however, still finds himself consumed in this society, including himself as he knows he is a part of everything 'we turn off down the gravel road', proving to be an intense discovery about the speaker himself. This discovery is heightened by the use of juxtaposition 'And we come to a landscape of tin cans'- two images that shouldn't be together. The speaker is aware of the landscape.
The song "Big Yellow Taxi" by Joni Mitchell also enforces similar ideas on the speaker. At the very start of the song it is evident that the concept of the song is about urbanisation and consumerism much like "Flames and Dangling Wire". The Speaker is regretting the fact that they didn't realise how beautiful nature was until it was gone "That you don't know what you have got until its gone". They explore the confronting fact that nature is being exploited and damaged- "And put them in a tree museum". This reveals a sense of discovery that is both challenging and confronting to the
The individual realises that they need to make discoveries that are significant to themselves and their own importance, but there may be set backs if they got influenced by what the other people around you tell you. This discovery is shown through a variety of different language techniques. Personification is used to emphasise the individuality of the speaker, which demonstrates his nervousness of personal discovery "feel nervously about in the blackness." The ferry is an extended metaphor for the vulnerability of the individual. For example, "swarming below the Bridge" which shows the smallness and insignificance of the ferry or 'individual'.
‘Big Yellow Taxi’ has similar themes to ‘Late Ferry’, as the speaker was oblivious to their surroundings; thus causing the individual to realise that they needed to make a confronting and provocative discovery about themselves. The speaker expresses this through the use of colloquial language, “That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone”. This emphasises a shocking and revealing journey to the speaker, because it explores elements of change, and in this case being negative, just as Greys poem ‘Late