Strongman by Tony Curtis and Mid-term break by Seamus Heaney :: English Literature

Strongman by Tony Curtis and Mid-term break by Seamus Heaney deal with the subject death of a family member. Compare both poems showing how the poets introduce their subjects. Which poem did you prefer and why? One of the poets, Tony Curtis, is Welsh, whilst, Seamus Heaney is Irish. Seamus Heaney has grown up on a farm in Northern Ireland with his brothers and his parents. The whole family has taken on the family business of farming, while Seamus Heaney received an education. Both poets are still alive today. These two poems describe the deaths of a family member. The "Mid-term break" is the tragic death of Heaney's four-year-old brother and the poem progresses over twenty-four hours. "Strongman" is describing the author's strong, caring father who dies naturally in "his final hour". While the "Mid-Term Break" had an awkward and devastating mood the "Strongman" has a more positive outlook on the family member's death as it looks back into the younger, happier times. There are a few other comparisons that can be made, whilst the "Mid-Term Break" is a death that shocked people, the "Strongman" was a peaceful and easy to accept death. In this essay I intend to look at the differences and similarities in the poems. The first poem I intend to discuss is "Mid-Term Break" by Seamus Heaney. The title "Mid-Term Break" suggests the poem is about children as we associate a mid-term break with school holidays. Other first impressions given in this poem relate to poor health or death. We relate to this due to the use of nouns such as "sick bay" and adverbs describing school bells as "knelling". This could also be reflecting the emotions of the child in the sick bay; at this point we are not sure. The structure is interesting, because at first glance we see that it has a regular pattern to it, which are three lines to each stanza. This possibly implies that the events that take place in the poem are predictable. However, the final line is a stanza on it's own, drawing you to it and creating a large impact on the audience. In the second stanza an awkward atmosphere and tone is introduced. The poet meets his "father crying"; this is one of the factors that make this stanza awkward. Men in the days when this poem was written (1966) were stereotypically thought of as strong people emotionally and physically, therefore, for the young poet to see his father crying on the porch would have made him feel uneasy. Furthermore, the dash at the end if each line causes the lines to flow as one sentence, this is