blog




  • Essay / Personal Reflection and Philosophy in the Poems of Robert Gray

    Poetry, a language used in various creative elements and forms by distinct poets, has significance in terms of the poet's ambition, decisions, and mood. The main purpose of poetry is essentially to provide pleasure to an audience or reader. Robert Gray, a contemporary Australian poet, exercises a unique sense of purpose and symbolism through his poems "Flames and Dangling Wire", "Byron Bay: Winter" and "Journey, the North Coast", through his integration of the philosophies of Dharma and Buddhism. , imagery, artistic influences and universal experiences. Gray's aspiration involves personal reflection between reader and poet, creating images to allow the reader to visualize the words of his poems and writing about real-life experiences that almost all readers are able to relate to and interpret differently. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay “Flames and Dangling Wire,” composed based on a journey to an apocalyptic dump, explores the unity of humans with nature and the metaphysics essentially involved in their destruction. Ultimately, the message Gray wanted to convey through this poem was humanity's annihilation towards nature and the circumstances this neglect would bring upon humans. The principle is to establish a moment of self-reflection towards the reader by crafting a theory of equality through the philosophy of metaphysics and using nature as a force of power. Humans depend on nature for survival, so Gray incorporating this theory of human self-destruction is ironic. Epitomized by "behind us, the city driven like stakes into the earth, a waterbird rises above this marsh while a turtle moves on the Galapagos coast", Gray's poetic choices implied to juxtapose the city, an artificial entity, aquatic birds and turtles. Through this distinction between man-made and indigenous objects, Gray evokes a sense of hope engendering the appearance of the waterbirds and the turtle while the first stanza generated a murky and murderous atmosphere. “Driven like stakes in the earth”, this comparison evokes violence and murder. This suggests that the city is invading and murdering the land. The insinuation of the “Galapagos shore” reminds the reader that the natural world will perish if left alone in nothingness. “Flames and Dangling Wire” inspires the reader to feel the effects of their competition in metropolitan life. It exaggerates the righteous pretenders to examine their effect on Earth and their spiritual destruction. Gray reminds the reader that the post-apocalyptic world exposed in the poem deciphers the uncertainty and hesitation of all matter. This concept is demonstrated through the quote “And standing in the mirage of the city, I realize that I am in the future. It will be like this after the departure of men. It will be made up of things that have worked.” The character is placed in a situation of reflection and realization that the destruction of the earth will ultimately leave him in nothingness and isolation, eventually committing suicide. The reader can relate to this feeling of isolation and reflect on their own contribution to society, which is Gray's ultimate intention. Gray almost threatens the reader with the prophetic word choices in this quote, such as “shall,” “shall.” The diction proves that everything will eventually end, but due to the nature of the entire poem, including its sinister and eerie aura, the reader is left wondering about its future and outcome. Grayrepresents this goal throughout the poem through the physics behind the nature of atoms and matter. Another important element of humanism is present in "Flames and Hanging Threads", through its effective use of art such as the "Raft of Medusa". "A worker hoists an unidentifiable mulch on his fork, throws it into the flame: something beats like the rag held in "The Raft of Medusa", shows the French shipwreck in 1816. 147 people were placed on a raft and the survivors experienced cannibalism, starvation and dehydration. The artist Géricault expressed through his painting a paradox of how a hideous subject can be transferred to a powerful painting. It also represents the sailors' vain hope because salvation is in sight, but unattainable. Yet, in the context of the poem, humanity is abandoned to its fate. Gray implements the artwork as a visual comparison that the reader can imagine regarding the intensity of the poem's setting. Subsequently, the incitement to imagism is integrated into Gray's poem "Byron Bay: Winter". The poem is written in the traditional ballad form, but it is appropriate with loose rhyme and flow. Gray once said, “my poems are about a visual experience that becomes a language.” This concept of imagery is present in almost all of his poems through his references to artistic movements and specific works of art. Gray's motive in this poem is to achieve maximum clarity through the images he incorporates into his poems. Gray, himself a liberated artist, joined the artist Paul Cézanne, a French post-impressionist painter. “Beside me, the foliage of the swamp oaks streams with Cézanne on health, a guard wagon follows the ferry of a train.” Notable characteristics of Post-Impressionist art involve bright colors, thick paint, real subject matter, use of natural colors, and distortion for expressive effect. Cézanne once said: “A work of art that does not begin with emotion is not a work of art.” The influence of romanticism is also very clear in this poem. The character's prolonged presence throughout the poem reminds the reader that the poem describes their impression and experience of the landscape. “Barely contained by the view,” he emphasizes, referring to the landscape engulfed by the eye. The emotional response to nature is not systematically explicit, but it occurs. The final epiphany when the person sees the landscape in its entirety is heavily influenced by romanticism, as the connection with God is deciphered through the appreciation of nature. The concept of this is known as pantheism, which is the clarity that God is found through nature and its creations, and not through dharmic detachment. Gray's ambition is to express the reader's vision in a vivid and pictorial way. By describing each moment, color, visual surrounding the character, Gray allows the reader to imagine the poem. This is strongly influenced by his interest and participation in art and artistic creation. The interconnectedness of nature with itself, such as the unity of animals, earth, sea and sky, which often takes place within a limited space, further strengthens Gray's depiction of the art of landscape. Through the description of nature, Gray exercises the spiritual experience of self and its relationship with the natural environment around it. Gray's ulterior motive is essentially that nature provides many opportunities for self-reflection and this is reflected in his artistic influences. As with works of art, the audience can get lost in a work of art. Gray's goal is also for the reader to “lose” themselves in his poetry through his images. Additionally, “Journey, the North Coast” is about.