Blog 9 - Who Knew Poems Provide So Much Imagery?

     The imagery in John Masefield’s “Cargoes” and Wilfred Owen’s “Anthem for Doomed Youth” are different in a couple of ways. Masefield describes a few different types of images, however he mainly describes pleasant visual imagery. Although, towards the end the imagery becomes unappealing. Whereas Owen mainly describes sounds. He uses pleasant metaphors to describe something that is actually a horrific sound. Towards the end, the images of the poem change from sounds to sight. 

     In the first stanza of “Cargoes” John Masefield gives the sense of sound, sight, smell, and taste. He writes about “apes and peacocks” (4). This makes me imagine the different sounds of the animals, along with the sight of a colorful peacock. My favorite image is of the “sandalwood, cedarwood” (5). The smell of the fresh natural wood. Then he goes to the “sweet white wine” (5). This makes me imagine the taste of sweet dessert wine. All of these images make me feel relaxed and peaceful. Including when Masefield writes, “rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine” (2). I am imagining the smell of the ocean and the feel of the warm sun. In the second stanza Masefield describes mostly visual images. He writes:

          With a cargo of diamonds,

          Emeralds, amethysts,

          Topaz, and cinnamon, and gold moidores. (8-10)

All of these descriptions make me imagine all the luxuries of royalty. The beautiful sparkling jewels and shinning gold coins. Despite all of the wonderful descriptions, in the third stanza Masefield writes about some unpleasant images as well. In the first line he writes about the “Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack” (11). I am now picturing a huge dirty ship that is polluting the air with tones of nasty smoke. He continues to write:

  With a cargo of Tyne coal,

Road-rails, pig-lead,

Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays. (13-15)

This completely changes the entire poem for me. Now I am just imagining everything wrong with commercialized shipping; nasty smog, dirty coal, poisonous lead, and possible oil polluting the water. 

     In “Anthem for Doomed Youth,” Wilfred Owen starts off with “What passing-bells for these who die” (1). At first I was imagining the lovely sound of church bells. However, my mind quickly changed in the first line. He continues to write, “those who die as cattle” (1). My mind goes from a peaceful funeral, to a horrific death. I picture men standing in the front line of war, dropping just like cattle. Then in the second line Owen writes, “Only the monstrous anger of the guns” (2). Come to find out there aren’t bells at all, just loud gun shots. This is not a pretty poem so far. Owen again uses something pleasant to describe an awful situation. He writes, “The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells” (7). He is describing the sound of the explosions used as the church choir for mourning death. Towards the end Owen’s images change from sound to sight. He writes, “What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes” (9-10). There are only tears to shine in place of candle light. So instead of these boys receiving a nice funeral and time to mourn, the war continues over their dyeing bodies. I don’t like these images at all!