ediately reminded me of downtown Vancouver. The part of downtown where people are sick and hungry , on East Hastings street, too many of them. The characters in this poem start of sounding very lonely and stranded. Avison explains that they are “The cumbering hungry / and the uncaring ill…”(1-2). The people have no one to care for them, no one to fix their illnesses, and by the way the author makes it sound, most of them don’t care: “and the uncaring ill…”(2). Many of these people are just sick for the simple fact that they are starving, or even just severely depressed.-->By the third stanza the poem seems to shift tones to give the characters a hopeful feeling. Avison says “It is not hopeless. / One can crawling move / too there, still free to love…”(10-12). Avison is giving the characters who have nothing at all something to be hopeful for. This thing that Avison is giving them is the idea of love. Although these characters seem to have had a rough run at life, Avison is telling them that there is always a chance for love. Avison mentions that this chance at love is a cure for their illness, a cure for their depression. Avison states “And there is reason in / the hope that then can shine / when other hope is none.”(14-16)
-->The last stanza in the poem is a contradictory idea from the first stanza. This poem i
s interesting because of the way it flows from very depressing to hopeful. The characters that are described go through a revelation in the middle of the poem, and by the end they are told that if they have no hope of doing anything in their life there is always love. Even if they are on the street, hungry, and ill, love can be their reason to stay hopeful. The main idea of this poem is that love conquers all, if you stay hopeful and find it, your hunger and illness will fade because you will be filled with something new.By: Rachelle Beuk
2 comments:
I thought your blog was very insightful Rachelle! The description of going from the poor that no one cares about to the idea that love and hope conquers all was very well-done. I also agree with you that this poem is very evocative of downtown Vancouver.
The part of the poem I enjoyed most was the transitional part right in the middle, where Avison talks about trying to reduce the number of homeless people and the failure that accompanies this effort. She says "become too many/try as we will ... (and quail/at tomorrow's new supply, and fail anew to find and smash the why?)" (3-9) This, in my opinion, is the essence and the "moral story" of the poem, the subtler one. So many efforts have been made to reduce the number of homeless and all have failed. We are consistently failing to "smash the why", as Avison puts it.
That's not really about character, but I thought you did such a good job of looking at the character in the poem that there wasn't anything to say except 'good job'!
Woops! That was by me, Brianne Coffey!
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