TEP 424 Resource: Image In Poetry

1. Nothing’s Changed
A Piece of Sky Without Bombs

2. By the end of this presentation you
will be able to…
• Understand what ‘imagery’ is
• Identify the images poets use in their poems
• Understand the relationship between poetic
techniques and imagery
• Begin to analyse why imagery is used in protest
poetry
• Demonstrate your understanding of imagery by
completing your own example

3. • What is it?
Words create pictures in your mind
• How does it work?
Symbols
Metaphors and similes
Detailed descriptions
Personification
How many of these poetic techniques are you familiar with?
What are some of the other poetic techniques you can think of?

4. • Why would a poet use it?
Transports reader (time or place)
Reader experiences the poem’s action
Reader experiences emotional reaction
If you can see it, you believe it!

5. What images do our poets use?
‘Nothing’s Changed’ (Afrika):
Small round hard stones click
under my heels,
seeding grasses thrust
bearded seeds
into trouser cuffs, cans,
trodden on, crunch
in tall, purple-flowering,
amiable weeds.

6. What images do our poet’s use?
WHAT do we imagine?
Harsh landscape
Landscape intruding on people
Forgotten landscape

9. What images do our poet’s use?
HOW does the poet make us imagine
these things?
Seeing and touching the landscape through
Descriptive detail:
small round hard stones
bearded seeds
trodden on cans
purple flowering, amiable weeds

10. What images do our poet’s use?
HOW does the poet make us imagine
these things?
Hearing the sounds of the landscape through
Onomatopoeia:
click
crunch

11. What images do our poet’s use?
HOW does the poet make us imagine
these things?
Feeling impacted upon by the landscape thorough
Active verb:
thrust
Symbolism:
hard stones
Feeling empathy for the landscape through
Personification:
amiable weeds are littered with garbage (cans)

12. What images do our poet’s use?
WHY would the poet want us to imagine
these things?
Transport us to physical time and place:
South Africa, post Apartheid
What do we know about post-Apartheid South Africa?
• Districts which were bulldozed and forgotten
about, used as dump sites
• Groups of people who were forgotten about
• People were responsible for decimation of landscape
and ethnic groups

13. What images do our poet’s use?
WHY would the poet want us to imagine
these things?
Feeling emotion:
• Being forgotten
• Being downtrodden and harshly treated
• Being devastated to see wasteland former
home has become

14. What images do our poet’s use?
The Protest?
Country still in need of change, reparation after
policy of Apartheid ends.
Looking beyond the policy change to actual
effects on displaced people.

15. Let’s do the next one together!
Steps:
1. What is the image in the text?
2. How is the image being created?
3. Why would the poet use this image?

16. ‘A Piece of Sky Without Bombs’ (Lam Thi My Da)
At night your soul pours down,
bright as the stars.

17. WHAT are the elements of the image?
What does the ‘soul’ look like?
• Night sky
• Bright stars
• Light shining on the earth
Now use Google Images (www.google.com) to
find a picture containing these elements which
you can use to help you imagine what the ‘soul’ in
the poem looks like.

18. HOW is the image being created?
Simile:
Comparing something to something else using
‘like’ or ‘as’.
The soul is being compared to bright stars in the
night sky
Let’s make a list as a class:
What qualities does this give the ‘soul’?

19. WHY would the poet use this image?
Let’s discuss as a class:
Why would the poet want us to connect
a ‘soul’ (something from the afterlife)
with ‘stars’ (something we can see)?
Connecting our world (stars) with the afterlife
(soul) gives us a way to maintain connection
with the dead.

20. The Protest?
Connecting our world (stars) with the afterlife
(soul) gives us a way to maintain connection
with the dead.
Why is this important in the context of
the Vietnam War? Discuss this in small groups of 3.
HINT: Think about what you learnt about:
• number of civilians killed in Vietnam
• attempts made to ‘forget’ the War (at the time
and for decades afterwards)

21. Its your turn!
In pairs, complete this table for a second image in this poem
using the same steps: HINT: Think about
the elements of
Could it be that when we passed that day, the image which
it was not the sun but your heart breaking through? are highlighted in
red for you!
WHAT is the image? Think about
HINT: Use Google
poetic techniques
Images
like
Picture you have found to represent this What
metaphors, perso
image emotion, action,
nification, symbol
time or place is
ism etc
HOW is the image created? the Thinktrying
poet about
to get you have
what us to
experience?
learnt about
WHY would the poet use this image? the context of
the poem and
poet
How does this connect to what the poet
is protesting about?