Nostalgia In Poem At Thirty Nine

How is a sense of nostalgia explored in “Piano”, “Poem at Thirty Nine”, “Remember” and three other poems? A sense of nostalgia is often reflected in poems through the poets’ use of language and literary devices. This presents readers with a sense of time, evoking the poet’s powerful emotions. “Piano”, “Poem at Thirty Nine” and “Remember” are three poems that shows poets remembrance. In “Piano”, the author is brought back to memories of his childhood, through the sound of a piano. The memories of childhood is also seen in “Alone” by Edgar Allan Poe. In “Poem at Thirty Nine”, great qualities of a father is remembered. Another father is remembered in Seamus Healey’s poem, “Digging”. Lastly, in “Remember”, the poet hopes to be remembered after

This sentimentalism is seen in “Piano”, written by D.H. Lawrence, where a man remembers his childhood as he listens to a woman sing while playing the piano. In this poem, a mixture of tonality, language, structure and literary devices helps to intensify the theme of nostalgia. A soft, yet dynamic tone is used. This sets the mood for nostalgia. Immediately into the poem, readers are presented with the Lawrence’s memories, as seen in the phrase “Taking me back down the vista of years”. In here, the author has used first person perspective to show his personal image of childhood. This contrasts with the next sentence, “A child sitting under the piano”, which is written in third person perspective. Using this, Lawrence accentuates the distance between himself and his memories, reflecting a sense of personal weakness. The structure of the poem is also purposely chosen to set the theme. In each stanza, the first two sentences show present time, while the last two are the Lawrence’s flashbacks into his childhood. This clear contrast within each stanza is backed by the rhyme scheme of AABB. Supporting the tone, language and structure, literary devices are also used effectively to further highlight the theme of nostalgia. In line three, the poet uses an onomatopoeia, “in the boom of the tingling”. This amplifies the suddenness and abruptness of the poet memories flushing

This poem is written in first person perspective, thus showing it as Healey’s personal memories. It appears as if the poet is next to his father, but this is shown to be a memory in “I look down”, where the author looks back into time. Healey describes his father as a dedicated digger, and a sense of nostalgia is seen where his father “bends low”, meaning the poet’s father’s gradual increase in age. “Twenty years of age” indicates precisely this is a memory from twenty years ago. Moreover, Healey has interchanged between different tenses. This is seen in “Where he was digging”, which shows a sudden turn from present tense to past tense, so it is easier for the reader to understand the transition from present time to past memories. Even though like “Poem at Thirty Nine”, admiration towards the poets’ ancestors is shown, in “Digging”, Healey has not followed his ancestor’s paths, and becomes a writer instead of a digger. As reflected in the last two lines, “The squat pen rests. I’ll dig with it.”, the author hopes to use literature to show the toughness that his father and grandfather once