The Lake

The Lake - Roger McGough !!!
The purpose of this poem is to tell the audience to stop littering the lakes and other water bodies because it is hard for the sea animals to survive underwater.
OMP- LIST
The Poem
The Lake
For years there have been no fish in the lake.
People hurrying through the park avoid it like the plague. Birds steer clear and the sedge of course has withered.
Trees lean away from it, and at night it reflects, not the moon, but the blackness of its own depths.
There are no fish in the lake.
But there is life there. There is life.

Underwater pigs glide between reefs of coral debris.
They love it here. They breed and multiply in sties hollowed out of the mud and lined with mattresses and bedsprings.
They live on dead fish and rotting things, drowned pets, plastic and assorted excreta.
Rusty cans they like the best.
Holding them in webbed trotters their teeth tear easily through the tin, and poking in a snout, they noisily suck out the putrid matter within.

There are no fish in the lake.
But there is life there. There is life.
For on certain evenings after dark shoals of pigs surface and look out at those houses near the park.
Where, in bathrooms, children feed stale bread to plastic ducks, and in attics, toy yachts have long since run aground.
Where, in living-rooms, anglers dangle their lines on patterned carpets, and bemoan the fate of the ones that got away.
Down on the lake, piggy eyes glisten.
They have acquired a taste for flesh.
They are licking their lips. Listen .. .

O - Orientation
M - Meaning
The OMP-LIST is a list that includes all the things we have to analyze while analyzing a poem. each letter in the title which is OMP-LIST represents a word.
O - Orientation L - Language
M - Meaning I - Imagery
P - Purpose S - Structure
T - Tone
There is one more thing that you have to analyze in a poem which is included in the list but the starting letter is not included in the title. It is the theme in a poem.

The orientation includes the place and the time. In this poem which is called the lake, the setting is the lake and the time in which the poem has been set is at night.
The Title itself tells us the setting and the time has been mentioned on the 6th line of the poem which is - ' and at night it reflects, not the moon.' the word "at night " tells us the time.
The poem is about a dead lake and is filled with diseases and dirt. But there is life inside the lake, life for pigs. Yes, pigs live inside this dead lake on rotten fish and plastic. In fact, they love dirt and mud . They eat everything including human flesh but still they are always hunting for more and more food.
P - Purpose
L - Language
In this poem, figurative speech has been used in 2 places. This poem does not have a lot of figurative speech or literal devices.
"
T heir T eeth t ear easily t hrough t he t in." - Alliteration
" Under water pigs glide between reefs of coral debris. - Enjambment.
I - Imagery
The visual imagery we found in the poem is a dead lake with living things, living inside it.
S - Structure
There Is NO Structure !
T - Tone
This poem has a very sad tone because its attitude and its style has been set like that.
Themes we found in the poem
The themes we found in this poem is life and death.
"
There is life there. There is life.....
" - Life

The poem is about a dead lake
- Death