Thomas Shapcott is an Australian born poet who left school at fifteen in order to work alongside his father in his accountancy firm; however Shapcott had always had an interest in the literary art which saw his first creative impulse to become a composer. Shapcott has since published fifteen collections of poems as wells as many novels, drams, reviews and short stories. The Order of Australia award was received by Shapcott in 1989 for services to literature and arts administration. Between 1997-2005, Shapcott was the inaugural Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide. Thomas Shapcotts poem ‘In the Forest’ has a particularly powerful message in highlighting how the inhabitants of the world manipulate their landscape for their own benefits.
Texts have long explored the interaction between individuals and their environment. Thomas Shapcott’s poem ‘In the Forest’ is no exception. Humanity is constantly trying to change, and alter the environment to suit their needs whereby individuals within an environment manipulate their own personal and physical landscape. The more literal landscape then has the ability to shape a more powerful figurative landscape.
‘In the Forest’ illustrates this negative and destructive impact of humanity on their own personal landscape. The overall message of this poem can be interpreted in many lights, however the main focus is placed on the destruction caused by man, and the constant want for possessions by society who value purely materialistic items. The relationship between humanity and their landscape no longer is one of ‘give and take’, rather one where only benefits are to the inhabitants.
A vast array of language forms and features have been utilized in order to clearly present the composers message to the responders of this poem. Throughout the poem there is an extended metaphor to represent human intervention against the land. The use of the word ‘axe’ has negative and violent connotations of destruction and has been used to represent this devastation. Sensory and visual imagery have been used cohesively in the first stanza to paint a landscape at a pause in time, whereby the harsh sound of the axe is soon anticipated. Suspense has been built through the simple short sentences making the reader question and considers the true consequences of their actions.
The human interaction and relationship with landscapes are primed and archetypal to express how humanity has always connected and relied on literal landscapes, but this relationship may not always be reciprocated. The forth stanza conveys how humans cause destruction to land, where they use and abuse the landscape for their own personal gains. The line ‘The tree is tensed’ uses personification to express how the natural environment has to come to a stop still and obey the needs of humanity. The inhabitants of this natural landscape are forced to quickly move if they wish to escape, however the tree cannot move and will suffer as a result to the merciless actions of humans and deforestation. The line ‘Crack again crack of slow man’s weapon’ make use of alliteration and repetition of the harsh ‘c’ sound in order to scare and cause a reaction from the responder.
A number of rhetorical questions have been employed to make the responder question the actions of humans like themselves where they understand the need to protect this environment due to its fragility.The last sentence of the poem ‘They settle for sleep’ is particularly powerful in stressing the vulnerability life and how actions of the past cannot be erased and will permanently mark the surface of the landscape. The last stanza makes references to death, especially through the negative connotations of ‘the skull’, however I believe the last sentence furthers this idea in representing in a more peaceful way how the life of the natural inhabitants is now over and how the word ‘sleep’ refers to death. Through alliteration a peaceful and somber tone juxtapose the previous harsh tone.
There are a number of poems which make connections to the themes of this poem including; Late Ferry – Robert Gray and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening – Robert Frost. Both these poems relate in they explore the power an inhabitant has on a landscape.
Annotations:
No comments:
Post a Comment