The Poetry Lesson by Don Maclennan Essay - 1605 Words

In the poem â€Å"The Poetry Lesson† by Don Maclennan an ironic mood emerges. The poem is about an English poetry lecturer. He expresses his views and feelings on his lessons, how he might have impacted on the lives, altered the views and the challenges he has given his students. He states what he expects from his students. It is interesting to note that Don Maclennan is in fact a South African English poetry lecturer. I thus assume that this poem is a reflection on how he views himself and his students. I intend to give a detailed analysis of the poem, by defining the type of irony that occurs in the poem and commenting on the use of irony and the nature of the poems commentary on itself. I will give my interpretation of each stanza of the†¦show more content†¦10). This shows the irony that the teacher who should know most things about his/her subject knows very little. The reader is made to ponder about whether he is ignorant or just feigning it. In stanza one we are introduced to the teacher. He seems to be an unhappy person as he speaks of sliding â€Å"into depression† (l. 1). We hear of him listening to â€Å"the redwing starlings in the tree† (l. 3) and the impression that he longs for someone to hear him is given as he says, â€Å"I need someone to hear my confessions† (l. 4). The word confessions could imply that he has something bearing down of him that he longs to share with others. At this point in the poem it is not clear that the speaker is a lecturer, I assumed he was a student who would be describing a poetry lecture. The irony here is the idea that the lecturer was a student. The lecturer stands by and watches his students walking into class. Stanza one has provided the reader with an idea of where the poem is set and a brief introduction to the poet and how he feels. In stanza two the poet describes himself in detail as his students might see him and we see how he sees his students. The poet states that he brings his â€Å"emptiness inside† (l. 10) the lecture hall and refers to his students as being the knowledgeable ones. This is ironic as the lecturer should be the knowledgeable one, the person who educates his students by passing on what