poetry demonstrates the power of his imagery” How is this statement refected in two of the poems you have studied Robert Gray’s poetry relies heavily on imagery and symbolism. In turn this creates a picturesque tone in the poems. The poems “The Meatworks” and the “Old House” Robert Gray uses different techniques to emphasis the technique of imagery. The two poems do have their similarities through Robert Gray’s unique style of composition and persona, but have there differences also as each poem represents a different quota of the composers life.
In the poem “The Meatworks” the composer creates a visual atmosphere showing that he distances him self from the “sloppy yards” by “settling for the lowest paid jobs” and being the “furthest end from the bellowing sloppy yards”. This emphasises his resentment for his work place and with ignorance creates an image of cruelty and how internecine the Meatworks is. Another technique Gray uses in his poems is synesthesia.
In the poem “The Meatworks” this technique is frequently used to demonstrate why the persona is so repelled by the meatworks and chooses to be the “furthest end from the bellowing sloppy yards”. This technique helps demonstrate the power of imagery by using such powerful words and phrases to impede with you senses. “Arm-thick corkscrew, grinding around inside it, meat or not”. This is an example of the cacophonous phrases used in the poem to create the explicit imagery it holds.
In the poem the “Old House” Gray creates a lot of analogies using similes as the main comparison technique, by creating the analogy with inelaborate objects Gray allows you to create an image of your own. “All that grass is rippling, like the way hounds undulate” this creating a very effective simile referring to the way the grass moves to the way a dog moves. In both “The Old House” and “The Meatworks” Gray uses injament as a technique. Gray uses this to provide emphasis on an individual word or phrase.
This helps intensify the image that the previous sentence or stanza has created. “the closed wooden house, with its verandahs And observatory”. This also helps create mystery and provides emphasis as to why the observatory would be in the old house. Another technique used to convey the technique of imagery is the use of adjectives. Gray effectively uses adjectives to describe the scene he is writing about. In repercussion the imagery is much more effective and clearer. :Quote:
