A City's Death By Fire

After that hot gospeller has levelled all but the churched sky,
I wrote the tale by tallow of a city's death by fire;
Under a candle's eye, that smoked in tears,
I Wanted to tell, in more than wax, of faiths that were snapped like wire.
All day I walked abroad among the rubbled tales,
Shocked at each wall that stood on the street like a liar;
Loud was the bird-rocked sky, and all the clouds were bales
Torn open by looting, and white, in spite of the fire.
By the smoking sea, where Christ walked,
I asked, why Should a man wax tears, when his wooden world fails?
In town, leaves were paper, but the hills were a flock of faiths;
To a boy who walked all day, each leaf was a green breath
Rebuilding a love I thought was dead as nails,
Blessing the death and the baptism by fire.

Analysis of the poem

Walcott’s poem “City’s Death by Fire” is a lyrical; poem imbued with expression of intensive
feelings of loss, sadness and disillusionment that come with the destruction of the city. The
persona talks of “faiths that were snapped like wire” (line 4) due to the city’s death. And the
circumstances under which the poem is written” under a candles eye that smoked In tears”(line3)
delivers a sullen picture of great sadness . The intensity of the loss is captured in the
personification in the title of the poem “A City’s death by Fire”. A city is said to die yet it is not
a living organism that dies. However, the metaphor captures the existence of the town which in
totality is like an organism that has life. When the fire consumes the city, its heritage such as
buildings and daily activities of the city is completely destroyed and which cannot be brought
back to original form.
The poem is also effective in its communicating due to use of imagery. The imagery is rich and
is extensively captured in various metaphors employed in the poem. The fire is referred to as the
“hot gospeller”, an indication of the fire’s might and the manner in which it widely spread like
the way gospel is spread. This is followed by the metaphor “churched sky” which means that the
sky like untouchable church is never affected by the fire. Together with the metaphor of ‘hills
that were flocks of faith” (line11) which gives the picture of many sheep grazing in peace, help
draw a sharp contrast between the persona’s “wooden world” and the natural world which is not
affected by the fire. This contrast in the two world’s created by the images of the two worlds
show how unreliable and insecure the persona’s world that has been created by humans is and
therefore worth not putting trust in. Therefore to alter persona’s mistaken faith in man made
world, his world has to go through a transformation captured in the image enhancing allusion of
“baptism by fire”.
Loss of persona’s faith in his “wooden world” is captured on the similes “…faiths that were
snapped like wire” which shows that the impact of the fire is so sudden and which suddenly
demands a new way of looking at life. People’s faith in their indestructible world is suddenly
broken and thus their pain as their belief is destroyed. The persona is shocked at the walls that
stood on the street “…like liars”. The walls give a false picture of the reality; of the city as it
were before its destruction and which cannot now be brought back to life. However, in the last
stanza the persona expresses much hope for the town and its people since there “baptism” by fire
marks the beginning of a new well founded faith that is not based on man made things.

Solved Questions
Who is the Speaker in the poem? Describe.
The speaker is identified several times in the poem by the first person pronoun ‘I’, but it is a bit
ambiguous as to who the speaker really is. It seems to be written in the point of view of a
bystander, either that saw the events of the poem take place, or arrived shortly after it all to
witness the aftermath of the fire. Either way, he observes all the details of the burned city with
a certain incredulity and bewilderment.

2. Who is the audience of the poem?

The audience seems mainly to be aimed at the surviving residents of the city. The second part of
the poem focuses on reassuring the people that everything will be restored in the end. The poem
also seems to reach out to the rest of the world. The last lines of the poem make you think a bit
more, as a reader, rather than just looking onward at the aftermath and not feeling like a part of
the audience.

3. What is the situation and setting of the poem?

The poem takes place in a fairly large city, during the aftermath of a large fire. The
speaker walks around the ruins of the city, gazing at all the destruction. He vividly describes
all of the burned buildings, the crumbling walls, and the rubble left after the fire. The once great
city has been reduced to mere rubble, mortar and bricks.

4. State the poem’s central idea or theme in a single sentence.

Even if all the terrible destruction and devastation of the fire has crippled the people of the city,
eventually normal life will begin again and people will live on with love, acting as a living
testimony to what happened.

5. Describe structural pattern of the poem both in terms of visual patterns and sound
patterns (stanzas, rhyme scheme, meter, free verse, alliteration, repetition, etc.)
The poem does have end rhyme present. In the beginning, it rhymes lines 1 and 3, 2 and 4, 5 and
7, and 6 and 8. But after line 8, it stops the regular rhyme scheme, only rhyming the words ‘fails’
and ‘nails’ for the rest of the poem. No other rhyme is present, and the poem is written in free
verse with no apparent meter to it. There are several examples of alliteration though: tale
by tallow, smoking sea, wooden world, etc. He doesn’t use repetition thoroughly, but the whole
poem gives off biblical, fire-like images through its choice in words. The shape of the poem
itself even looks a bit like a fire, with its peaks and dips.
6. Comment on the poem’s diction. How does diction relate to tone?
The poem is very specific in all of its diction and word choices. Walcott uses several words, such
as ‘blessing’, ‘baptism’, ‘nails’, and ‘Christ’ to give off a holy, biblical image and feeling about
the poem. It’s almost as if the fire is a purging sort of rebirth for the entire, which alludes to the
story of Jesus Christ’s Crucifixion and him rising from the grave three days later. The diction
and word choice gives a serious tone and mood to the poem, and draws the reader into the
aftermath of the fire.

7. Is imagery dominant? Explain.

Yes. It is dominant throughout the entire poem. The word choices and placement of the lines of
poetry help to create image after image, as the speaker of the poem walks through the burned
city. Images of burned buildings, ruined walls, and piles of rubble immediately spring to mind
when Walcott describes the aftermath. The lines at the beginning and the end even give the
readers specific pictures, even if they don’t focus on the fire.

8. Is the poem narrative (creating a “story” of sorts) or lyric (suggestive rather than

concrete, often expressing a single emotion)?
The poem is a bit more lyric in structure rather than narrative. It provokes more than one emotion
in the reader, however. I think that the poem gives off two distinct feelings, transforming the
reader from one feeling to the next as it progresses on with the poem. In the beginning, as the
speaker is walking through the burned, charred aftermath of the fire, the reader feels sorrow and
disbelief for the people of the city. But as the poem continues on and ends on the ‘renewal’-
type feeling, it causes the reader to change his initial feelings of sorrow into hopefulness for the
future. Sorrow/sadness–> hopefulness/possibility.

9. Comment on firgurative language (metaphor, extended metaphor, simile, idiom,

personification).
This poem is full of metaphors and allusions, and has some personification present as well. The
majority of metaphors and personification centers around the landscape after the fire, including
the remaining walls, the clouds, the hills, and the leaves. Lines 5,6, 7, 11, and 12 have these
personifications, and they bring out a feeling of both destruction (lines 5-7), and then later in the
poem, renewal (Lines 11-12).

10. Explain any symbols. Is the poem allegorical?

There are a few symbols in the poem. The candle mentioned in line 3 is continually referenced to
throughout the poem, through word choice and metaphors. The candle can be seen as a symbol
for life; as it continues to burn and whittle away, it still gives off light and goes on. It can be
connected back to the last couple lines of the poem, with the leaves and hills. The clouds and the
fire-like imagery associated with it can also be seen as a symbol. It’s like the pillar of fire in the
Bible that guides the Israelites through the desert, symbolizing the hope and possibility of the
future that the people of the city must have. It is another symbol that life goes on. And though
there are symbols present in the poem, I don’t think the poem is focused on being allegorical in
any specific way.
Walcott is a master and creating beautiful imagery and pictures through his word choice,
structure, and tone. He integrates simple words and common language into more formal and
extravagant words, to create a unique blend that in many ways is similar to the goals of T.S
Elliot. Walcott comes off to be a modernist/post-colonial poet following in Elliot’s footsteps,
trying to create a unique art in the form of his poetry, while varying his work. In ‘A City’s Death
By Fire’, Walcott uses the more serious tone, more formal language, and a different structure
than some of his other works. He seeks to vary each of his works to produce a uniqueness and a
specific image associated with it.