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SEM 2 2013/2014 BIS 3063 SELECTED POEMS IN ENGLISH

AT06-BACHELOR OF EDUCATION (TEACHING ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGE) WITH HONOUR

ASSIGNMENT 1 DROPS
BY VANHITHA KERNAGARAN

NUR AIN SUZIANIE BINTI CHE HAMID

D20121058083

LECTURER: MR. HAJI SIDEK BIN ARIFIN

2 DROPS

Drops of tears into the ground, drops of blood of human around, hears the shots in the air, hears the scream everywhere, helpless soul cant be there, miles away to care and share, the suffering of humans over there Vanhitha Kernagaran (2010)

Drops by Vanhitha Kernagaran is a short modern poem of nine lines stanza. It is a modern poem written by this Malaysian lady that conveys a message about the sense of humanity. It can be seen from the terms used by the poet such as tears, shots, scream, care and share. All these terms reflect a situation of a war. In the last two lines, miles away to care and share, the suffering of humans over there, it is clearly conveys the poets feeling about humanity. Vanhitha portrays a situation where those ignorant, selfish and heartless people do not even care of what happens to those suffering people. Their humanity has vanished. With all the technologies and transportation nowadays, distance is not an excuse for them not to care.

There are two important issues in this meaningful poem. The first one is war. hears the shots in the air, hears the scream everywhere,. From this excerpt from the poem, it is clearly reflecting a situation of war. In this millennium era, there are still some countries that are do not

get their freedom from the colonial such as Palestin and Iraq. It is such a sad thing to see our brothers live in fear every day. All the shots, bombings are such a normal situation for them but still, it is frightening. They do not know what will happen tomorrow; still alive or not. That is the situation of a war. The second issue is ignorant of people. helpless soul cant be there, miles away to care and share, The helpless soul there is a symbolism. In these two lines, the poet shows the situation of this type of people who cannot give any kind of help or aid the people in the or specifically said the people in the war zone.

Symbolism means the use of imagery to represent something else. In this meaningful yet full of messages poem, phrase helpless soul is the symbolism used by the poet. That phrase is symbolizing the ignorant people in the world on what is happening. They are too selfish to care and being sensitive of what issues happen in this world or even around them. So, the word helpless is used to emphasize more about the poets unsatisfied feeling about those kind of people. It is likely they are being too selfish as their existence is such a waste in this world.

From my understanding, this is a free verse poem. This is because it is a modern poem as it is written in 2010. It is Spenserian Stanza as this poem consists of 9 lines in a stanza. Next, the rhyme is abbbccccc. It is because there is a recurrent pattern of rhyme of the word which has the similar vowel sound at the end of each line. In line 4-9, there pattern of the rhyme is the sound of /r/. The example can be seen in the excerpt. hears the scream everywhere, helpless soul cant be there, miles away to care and share, the suffering of humans over there c c c c

In Drops, Vanhitha also uses a metonymy which means a word substituted for another word associated with it. Poet uses word blood to replace the word corpses or remains. Poet also included alliteration and assonance in this poem. Alliteration means the repetition of two words or more consonants sounds in successive words in line of verse or prose. Slightly different compared to alliteration, assonance happens when there is a repitition of two or more vowel

sounds in line of verse or prose. Below are the excerpts that show alliteration and assonance that can be found in this poem respectively. hears the shots in the air (repetition of s sound)

Alliteration the suffering of humans over there (repitition of e sound) Assonance