Lament Poem
The poem “Lament”, written by Gillian Clarke, is an elegy, an expression of grief that appeals to the reader for them to react to human mistakes which are damaging our planet.
The poem is lay out in seven stanzas of 3-line each (triplets), each of them very well defined and concentrated in a different complaint. The rhyme is quick due to the constant repetition of the word ‘for’ in the beginning of each stanza. The sentences in the poem lack of subject, so we can consider that these are written in the imperative so that the reader gives a response to these rues.
In the first stanza, the voice presents the first victim, a female turtle. By the word “pulsing burden”, the poetic voice conveys the idea of a suffered pregnancy, as she cannot find an appropriate location for her to lay her eggs. The fact of a ball and chain pregnancy and the probability that the turtle might have died, awakes the reader of how unconscious we are whenever we pollute nature without knowing the aftermath effect. We are being very selfish because we prefer our welfare instead of the animals’ which have the same rights to live.
In the second stanza, the matter of complaint is a cormorant representing sea birds affected by pollution. By the metaphor “the cormorant in his funeral silk”, the voice communicates that oil is the cormorant’s funeral veil which causes the death of these animals. The word ‘iridescence is an optical phenomenon of surfaces in which hue changes in correspondence with the angle from which a surface is viewed.’ This word conveys that we must see two faces of a coin if we want to use it properly. Human ambition in carrying oil from one place to another without considering the risk of leakage is the moral given by the poetic voice to warn the reader how ‘expensive’ it is to have everything when nature is hurt by our whims.
In the third stanza, the voice includes for the first time humans so that we mourn for them. In the quote “ For the ocean's lap with its mortal
The poem is lay out in seven stanzas of 3-line each (triplets), each of them very well defined and concentrated in a different complaint. The rhyme is quick due to the constant repetition of the word ‘for’ in the beginning of each stanza. The sentences in the poem lack of subject, so we can consider that these are written in the imperative so that the reader gives a response to these rues.
In the first stanza, the voice presents the first victim, a female turtle. By the word “pulsing burden”, the poetic voice conveys the idea of a suffered pregnancy, as she cannot find an appropriate location for her to lay her eggs. The fact of a ball and chain pregnancy and the probability that the turtle might have died, awakes the reader of how unconscious we are whenever we pollute nature without knowing the aftermath effect. We are being very selfish because we prefer our welfare instead of the animals’ which have the same rights to live.
In the second stanza, the matter of complaint is a cormorant representing sea birds affected by pollution. By the metaphor “the cormorant in his funeral silk”, the voice communicates that oil is the cormorant’s funeral veil which causes the death of these animals. The word ‘iridescence is an optical phenomenon of surfaces in which hue changes in correspondence with the angle from which a surface is viewed.’ This word conveys that we must see two faces of a coin if we want to use it properly. Human ambition in carrying oil from one place to another without considering the risk of leakage is the moral given by the poetic voice to warn the reader how ‘expensive’ it is to have everything when nature is hurt by our whims.
In the third stanza, the voice includes for the first time humans so that we mourn for them. In the quote “ For the ocean's lap with its mortal