The poem i am going to do on today is: Snapshotland

Snapshotland

In Snapshotland everyone is happy all the time.


It is the promised land where people sit with flasks of tea


on smooth sand by a flat sea and smile and smile and smile.




The sun shines all day long and every day in Kodachrome


or sepia on sandboys and sandgirls who never


stop smiling from the time they first appear, with buckets,


in crisp, gingham pinafores and bonnets on the sea-shore.





Lovers stay in love forever; married couples never


grow tired of each other; everything is always just right.


The dolphins know exactly when to leap into the air


and stay there for the permanent delight of passengers


aboard the pleasure-boat which never passes out of sight.






Nobody in Snapshotland grows old unless they want to,


judging by the way they go on smiling so, in deck-chairs,


on the beach, or in old-fashioned gardens with lavender


and grandchildren here and there - and no one dies, ever.






Even if they don't appear later, the people are still


always there, smiling through the lavender and dolphins


and the buckets full of pebbles on the same sea-shore.






By Sylvia Kantaris




After reading this poem, I am going to use this 10 steps to analyse it.


1)Forget what the poem may or may not mean, or what it may be about


2)Look at the title and jot down about half a dozen things that it suggest to you.


3)Read the poem once quickly and then several times more slowly. Try to hear the poem aloud in your head.


4)Make a list of all those things which force their attention on you or which catch your interest for one reason or another. You might jot down unusual/odd/striking words, rhymes or repetition/patterns/contrasts,etc.


5)Look at and list any features of language used in the poem, e.g. no capital letters; no full stops at all the line-end; presence/absence of adverbs/adjectives; all verbs are either active/passive; tenses-all past
except the last line, etc


6)Try to find groups of words e.g.
(a) All similes make reference to animals/death/plants etc
(b) All the first words of lines are conjunctions etc


7)Look at your lists, notes and groups. Do you see any pattern taking shape?


8)Read the poem again and try to make intelligent guesses of what the poem may mean.


9)Answer the following questions:
a) Who is 'speaking' the poem? Is it the poet or persona?
b)Who is the poem 'spoken' to? Is it a particular person, to the poet himself or to the public in general?
c)What is the speaker's attitude to that audience? Is it angry,sincere,joking or teasing?
d)What is the poet's attitude to his audience?
e) Why is the poem organized in the way it is?
f)What is the effect of all the things you have noted at Steps 2, 4, 5 and 6?


10)Now if you wish to, or have to , you can write a critical appreciation of that poem.


Answers


Q1) NIL


Q2)  1. Photos
        2. an island
        3. A dream
        4.Camera
        5.Joy
        6.Memories


Q3) NIL


Q4) sepia, gingham pinafores, bonnets,


Q5) "right" and "sight" (assonance)
      "smile and smile and smile" (repetition)


Q6)  These quotes "Lovers stay in love forever", "people sit with flasks of tea",  "couples never grow tired of each other", "Nobody in Snapshotland grows old " involves people inside.


Q7) Each stanza describe different places


Q8) The poem is trying to tell us that pictures are so good that they can freeze time because you will look forever young in a picture and behind every picture there is an interesting story.


Q9)


a) It is the poet.
b) He is speaking to the public in general
c) It is relaxed and cheerful
d) It is cheerful and relaxed
e) He is organise in a way that he gave many examples of how wonderful a picture is.
f) It is relevant to the passage