Example poetry anthology essay 2

Compare how poets present powerful feelings about love in ‘Neutral Tones’ and in one other poem from ‘Love and relationships’.

In both Neutral Tones and Winter Swans, Thomas Hardy and Owen Sheers present a suffering relationship that has experienced conflict. In Neutral Tones, the conflict happened a long time ago, however in Winter Swans, it is fresh and can be solved but only if time is put in, effort on both sides. However, in Neutral Tones, the poem does not end in resolution but in utter despair, as no progression was made. The love in Winter Swans is stronger.

 In Neutral Tones and Winter Swans, the poets present conflict that comes with love. The couple are “stood by a pond”, “on a winter day”. The semantic field of nature begins from the start, however the fact they are not moving and are beside a stagnant body of water symbolises how their relationship is going nowhere – it is also stagnant. The realistic features of “winter day” suggest difficulty and slowness because of how winter is commonly associated with death. The bleakness is carried throughout the first stanza creating an immediate depressing mood. “The sun was white” and the “roof” was “streaking”. The sun being white links to the title of the poem and therefore emphasises that the relationship is drained of life – light would symbolise hope and positivity, however there is none of this here, presenting a hopelessness. The personification of the ground being “starving” represents their relationship. It needs nourishment to progress – like the ground needs nutrients – however this is completely absent, implying the lack of effort. This could be interpreted as the addressee who is lacking effort, as at the start of the poem, the speaker refers to them as “we”. The collective pronoun implies he believes they are still a couple, however something is “starving” the relationship, so it must be her. The natural imagery here is similar to in [text unclear]. This is further implied when the speaker states that her “eyes had roamed over tedious riddles of years ago”. The enjambment here drags out the simile, implying how dull and bored she is in the relationship. The natural imagery in Neutral Tones is similar to the use of imagery in Walking Away. The poem begins after “two days of rain” and the ground was “gulping for breath”. The ground was “waterlogged”. This sets up an immediate sense that there is conflict in the relationship – they have argued for two days. The water symbolises their conflict, and they are standing on “waterlogged earth” – it is all around them. However, the ground is personified to be “gulping for breath”. This conveys the lack of nourishment in Neutral Tones. The verb “gulping”suggests the relationship is struggling, however it is trying to survive, contrasting the stagnance of Neutral Tones. In Winter Swans, the couple “skirted the lake, silent and apart”. This implies they are avoiding their issues (the lake) maybe because they believe confronting the conflict is risky – because of how much “rain” (conflict) there was. “Silent and apart” is separated by caesura and enjambment, therefore further emphasising the extent of their conflict and separation at this point.

Both poets use natural images to present how conflict is affecting the relationship. In Neutral Tones, the love is starved but in Winter Swans, it is struggling – love needs nurture. However, both poems confront the issues differently. Neutral Tones presents ideas that love is disappointing and it dies out – you can never escape the pain. The speaker states that “the smile on your mouth was the deadest thing” yet it “alive enough to have the strength to die”. Here, Hardy uses a semantic field of death to present the disappointment and lack of resolution. The oxymoronic phrase suggests that it was “alive”, however, now all living things die. This emphasises how much the speaker is experiencing feelings in which he is losing all hope in love. He believes now that all love can die. It does not last so it isn’t worth it. The smile was on her mouth, not her face, suggesting it isn’t real, therefore emphasising the one-sidedness of the relationship. It is also unnatural for a smile to be so condescending and bitter, suggesting that the relationship was never going to work. The tense shifts to present in the final stanza where he acknowledges he “had keen lessons that love deceives”. The plosive “k” emphasises his new bitterness and despair – he has lost all faith in romance, even now in the future. The poem ends by a pond once again “edged with greyish leaves”. The cyclical structure implies that he is unable to move on – he is haunted by the death of the relationship forever – the pain is ongoing. This all contrasts the progression in the relationship in Winter Swans. This poem suggests that with work and Sacrifice, a relationship can be saved. Sheers uses an extended metaphor of swans to represent the couple. They “halved themselves in the dark water.”
Halving represents a pair, symbolising unity, but it also represents sacrifice – they must do this to save the relationship. “Open water” suggests unknown – they must embrace the conflict to develop and strengthen themselves, not swim around it. Sheers is implying that both people in a relationship must make compromise. He (Sheers) had just gone through a divorce when he wrote Neutral Tones, which may influence his views on saving a relationship. The speaker compares the swans to icebergs – not only are they fragile like a relationship, they’re also hard to compare. A relationship is not always as perfect as it seems. Direct speech is used by the speaker to represent progression – the swans are rekindling communication, they’re not silent anymore. “Somehow” “their hands met at the distance.” “Somehow” implies it was almost unconscious, and “swum” implies effort was needed to close the gap and strengthen them – you must swim to survive. The poem ends on a couplet, therefore their unity is found. The swimming and gasping for breath and entering the darkness was needed to come out stronger – they mended their relationship and solved their issues.

In conclusion, as Thomas Hardy uses Neutral Tones to present love as difficult and painful, as it leaves you in a never-ending cycle of despair and torment, running out. However, despite the conflict in both, love conquers it in Winter Swans, and Owen Sheers presents how love requires effort to flourish, or it will drown and die. Love in Winter Swans is salvageable and strengthened because of effort.