Compare the ways in which the poets use contrast for effect in "Two Scavengers in a truck, two beautiful people in a Mercedes" and one other poem of your choice.

  

"Two Scavengers in a truck, two beautiful people in a Mercedes" is about two people in a rubbish truck stopped at a traffic light next to two people in a posh Mercedes; looking down into their world.

 

The language used in the poem is neither informal and colloquial, or long and overformal, but comfortably in the middle, so it can be understood, and still taken seriously. The language used paints a vivid picture it your head, with use of saying "yellow" and "red" to make you imagine something cheap and gaudy, and the phrase "gargoyle Quasimodo" is brilliant imagery, as it tells you nearly everything you need to know about what he looks like. This is compared to "the man in a hip three-piece linen with shoulder length blond hair and sunglasses." This is makes people imagine a fairly stereo typical character from film and TV, the rich "berk", slightly metrosexual, teeth as shiny as his car and an personality that leaves lots to be desired. Since this is a stereotypical character, I feel like I know him already. His partner is "The young blond woman so casually coiffed with a short shirt skirt and coloured stockings" this gives the impression of someone rich enough not to care. This is compared to the cheap, gaudy colours and the "gargoyle".

 

This poem has no particular rhythm, pattern or structure no speak of. The sentences

are spread like this.

for effect, and maybe to make it more visually pleasing, or maybe the poet has a dislike for conformity, or wanted to show non-conformity in this poem.

 

This poem is written from the perspective of someone watching, maybe someone in another car, maybe the poet or someone watching from above. My personal opinion of this poem is that I like the concept, I think it is relevant in the world we live in and truthful. My favourite part is when its saying that the garbage men look into the Mercedes, like its part of another world, I can imagine the looks on their faces; and how the four people, two scavengers, two beautiful people were held together for a few seconds, like they could know each other, when normally the two greatly different types of people would not be that close to each other, two different walks of life. Although the concept is valid, I personally don’t like the poetry, it seems too much like someone just writing, but with some artistic gaps added.

 

Nothings changed is a poem about apartheid, how after apartheid, though legally black people aren’t to be separated, they still were.

 

The language used is fairly simple language, most words a young person would understand; with some longer, more complicated words thrown in. Most words are only one syllable, some two syllable and three three syllable words. Most words are short, hard and harsh sounding such as; “thrust/cans/bone”; this makes it sound worse, not a delicate faerie tale place but a harsh, real-world place. The way the lines are short and separated, consisting of only a few syllables make every line seem separate to the next line and from the rest of the poem, and give it its own importance and to make each seem like a separate element so its not “brash with glass, name flaring like a flag” its “brash with glass” and its “name flaring like a flag.”

 

The structure of this poem is five eight-line stanzas, one two-line stanza and a six-line stanza. Some lines are longer and some shorter and their is no rhyming pattern, but some line endings within stanzas will rhyme (kind of), such as “seeds” and “weeds”; “know” and “bones”; “weeds”, “trees” and “cuisine”, “know” and “rose”; so to say there was no rhyming would be a lie, there is just rhyming loosely with no particular pattern.

 

This poem is from the poet’s point of view, or maybe that of a character the poet created. You can tell that the poem is first person through the use of words such as “I”, “my” and “we”. The poets (or characters) emotions are plainly clear here because of the “hot, white, inwards turning anger of my eyes” showing that he’s angry and also frustrated; and that his “hands burn for a stone, a bomb to shiver down the glass,” shows that he is so angry he want to break the glass of the restaurant, or maybe even metaphorical glass between black people and white people. I think the poet wrote this poem for people who are in the same place as him, or maybe to the white people so he could voice his opinion, and maybe even make a difference.

 

I personally don’t like this poem, I don’t like how the lines are small and broken up and I personally think if a poem doesn’t rhyme, the words have to be something really beautiful, and this poem wasn’t . The subject is boring, and although separation between races is and was an important issue, it’s been overdone to death and I’m personally sick of hearing about it.

 

The two poems are very different. The things the two poems have in common are that they both don’t really have any rhythm or a rhyming pattern. The types of words used are similar. Simple, not informal, overformal or colloquial; long, more advanced words are not used often. The point of view of view is similar in the way that the narrator was there. Another similarity is that they are both in the present tense.

 

The many differences are that nothings changed is a lot more metaphorical, for example it says “boy again” when he isn’t a boy again. You have to translate this into it meaning that he felt weak, helpless and small, where “scavengers” is a lot more straight-forward with the language used, the main metaphor being “gargoyle Quasimodo” a metaphor a lot easier to visualise. The way “nothings changed” has eight line stanzas makes in seem a lot more organised, formal and regimented where “scavengers” was a lot more freeform. The main difference in perspective is that though they both seemed to be there “nothings changed” was written from the subjects point of view. It would be interesting to read “scavengers” from the garbage men’s point of view, or even from the rich peoples point of view, who didn’t seem to notice or care.

 

My personal preference is “Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes” as I prefer the subject and that although I could understand “nothings changed” I found “scavengers” much easier to understand and relate to.