Pls help me find an analysis of these poems

[PleaseBeHonest]

Hi, I’m trying to help DS. He has 3 poems to write about and I can’t find anything online. Can someone help us please? The poems are:

At Rest by Heather French
Everything Becomes Metaphor by Brendan Ryan
Enemies by Wendell Berry.

Thanks so much!

So his mum does his homework for him. he learns that there will always be someone else to do what he wants, (mum, GF , wife, colleague).
The teacher learns that there's almost no point in doing any real thinking with these kids.

Well OP did her DS's homework for him so he can now go and play. Job done.

Now I've read them I'd say there were pretty straightforward?

Big themes in everyday settings.

Love, death, forgiveness.

The analysis of the structure is not incidental because it's used to create the feeling/emotional response the poets wanted. But you almost don't have to "understand" the poems to do that bit.

Can he identify metaphor, similes, punctuation, rhythm etc? Ask himself questions about why the poems are short, how the lines are constructed?

It sort of depends what year he's in I guess.

@Shannith he’s in Year 12 but has Asperger’s so struggles a lot with anything requiring imagination.

Why are people being so horrible about this? If the kid is stuck and finding it tricky it's perfectly normal to discuss it with his mum and perfectly normal to try the Internet. Stop being so harsh .
I have brothers who found English Literature difficult in school as very mathematical so too logical to really get into it. The whole family..mum/ sisters threw in ideas..no Internet. Guys grew up , great jobs very hands on fathers..community minded etc. Its not a big deal. And l am a teacher. Just leave off the poor guy. Looking for help and admitting you haven't a clue are important attributes to have going forward too.

The instructions say he only needs to pick one poem not all three?

Admitting you need help is different to getting your mum to ask MN to do it for you/her.

This is a Y12 who must have chosen to take English.

It’s not a Y7 struggling with changed expectations at secretary. It’s a 6th form student who has been asked to analyse a poem.

If he can’t understand the poems, he needs to go back to his teacher and talk through the process of analysing them.

And it was obvious from the obscurity of the three poems that it was going to be KS5.

Plus the (now standard) drip feed that this Y12 English student has Asperger’s and struggles with the non-literal. Several posts in when the responses were about how to support an analysis rather than providing a ready made one.

@SudocremOnEverything Why are you being so nasty? I am leaving the thread now. Hope you’re happy.

I hated English lit. Some help and guidance wouldve been useful.

I tried to help my dd with her English poetry analysis. I used bbc bitesize and google to give me a bit of a steer. Nothing wrong with that.

Im sure some parents get tutors for their children too.

@PleaseBeHonest its not being nasty to ask fo your son has chosen to do English at a level he’s managed GCSE and expects for work on his own not copy and paste. There have been some god ideas about how to start your

@NoSki He didn’t choose it. We’re in Australia and it’s compulsory for Year 12.

Apologies, this was not clear from your posting. Year 12 in the U.K. is age 16/17 where they have picked 3/4 subjects to take at a level and usually got a decent grade at that subject at GCSE

Agree with @junebirthdaygirl. If he can't do it then why not ask for help. I struggled with understanding poetry as most of it is utter BS in my opinion. It hasn't affected my life or work ethic whatsoever and I haven't needed my mum to do anything for me 🙄.

I felt like I was the only one who didn't understand poetry in class so daren't ask for help. In reality I expect most of the class didn't understand it either, they just found it easier to express their thoughts/asked for help and used what was given/just googled it (we couldn't afford internet while I was at school).

If he is fine with other subjects I very much doubt having help with some poems is going to cause him much detriment.

@PleaseBeHonest
Try this :-
Genius.com

We use this a lot in school.
I don't know if your poems are on there but a lot are and it might give you some ideas.

I'm going to assume your son is studying GCSE and that technical analysis is ok.

My son wasn't good at understanding the content but could often comment on the technical stuff. So if there was alliteration or pathetic fallacy etc he'd give examples and comment on it. Does your son have a glossary of the terms like that ? I don't remember learning stuff like iambic pentameter and caesura but my kids learned that sort of thing.

He didn't get As but he passed.

@PleaseBeHonest Hello,
Brendan Ryan has his own website, brendanryanpoetry.com, where he talks about the themes that run through his work. So that might be a good place for your son to start. Reading it will give him some clues of ideas, images or words to look for in the poem.

A good starting point when analysing a poem is to notice what type of poem it is, for instance is it a sonnet. Once you start thinking about why the poet chose to write in that form, other ideas often start to flow.

Thanks @AdaColeman.

He would be better off just giving it a go or explaining to the teacher that due to his diagnosis he is not able to perceive the emotional aspect of the poem but here's his take on the rest, language used etc.

I don't think the teacher has requested (or wants) him to go home and google 'what the poem is about' as per google and copy that in his own words. I can't see how he benefits or learns from that and that shouldn't be how to get through this homework request.

OP if you can drip feed and tell someone here that he can't do it for that reason then that's what the teacher needs to know and an alternative assignment for the poems offered. I'd expect him to analyse it from a language or contextual perspective (as in, give it a go and get his own words down) even if he felt he had no firm clue about the messages or meaning of the poem overall. Sitting down with him talking through ideas is helpful, googling so he can copy it to avoid looking like he doesn't know, isn't.

Year 12

A y12 is Australasian is still 16-18.

it’s reasonable to expect his mum not to be doing his homework

My dad did my poetry homework for me as I just didn’t get it. He got an A. I still don’t like poetry. Still went to uni but I was more science focussed.

I think op is just looking for advice/ resources so she can guide her ds.