about the poem 'ode on a grecian urn' by john keats

The poem "ode on the grecian urn" is by John Keats.

In the poem he describes a grecian the pictures on a grecian urn, the urn expresses the flowery tale even more sweetly than the poet can express by poetry.

Keats refers to the urn as the 'unravished bride of quietness' and 'foster child of silence and slow time'. He says that the urn is a "sylvan historian" telling us a story. The poet wants to know more about the stories that the pictures on the urn tell. He asks that what is the picture framed by leaves is shown on the urn, he wonders whether the picture are of people or gods or of both.He is curious to about the reluctance of the maidens struggling to escape and what is it that the men want. He wants to know what are the instruments shown and what kind of melody they play.

Keats says that the melodies that are heard are sweet but the ones unheard like those on the urn are sweeter as they make you wonder and make it more appealing to the ears and he tells the boy playing the pipes on the picture to keep playing forever.His song can never end nor the trees ever shed their leaves. The lover on the urn can never win a kiss from his beloved, but his beloved can never lose her beauty. Happy are the trees on the urn, for they can never lose their leaves. Happy is the musician forever playing songs forever new. The lovers on the urn enjoy a love forever warm, forever panting, and forever young, far better than actual love, which eventually brings frustration and dissatisfaction.

Keats sees the next picture and wonders to which god are the people sacrificing the heifer held by a priest. Instead of focusing on the sacrificial procession as another scene on his urn, Keats goes on to mention the town emptied of its inhabitants by the procession. The town is desolate and will forever be silent. 

In the final stanza Keats says that the urn teases him out of thought, as does eternity; that is, the problem of the effect of a work of art on time and life. He says that the urn has been able to preserve a temporary and happy condition in permanence, but it cannot do the same for Keats or his generation; old age will waste them and bring them woe. Yet the pictured urn can do something for them and for succeeding generations as long as it will last. It will bring them through its pictured beauty a vision of happiness of a kind available in eternity, just as it has brought Keats a vision of happiness by means of sharing its existence and bringing its scenes to emotional life through his imagination. All you know on earth and all you need to know in regard to beautiful works of art, whether urns or poems about urns, is that they give an inkling of the unchanging happiness.  According to keats the urn says that Beauty is truth and truth is beauty.

thats all i could write on it hope its good

about the poem "I am getting old now" by Robert Kroetsch

The poem "I am getting old now" is by Robert Kroetsch

In the poem the poet says that he is getting old and he can tell that as the has started dreaming a lot about his mother. As he is getting old he thinks about the past and about all the sentimental and important memories to him.The poet said that he had a dream about his mother and in the dream she was in the garden near the hill behind his childhood house, he says that she was just standing and he was playing in the pea vines. In the dream neither of them moved this shows that it was a picture from the past. As neither of them moved in the memory the poet tries to figure out what exactly they were doing.The poet said that he knew she was watching and that he also knew that she watched him grow up 'like a bad weed' as she said. the poet is getting old now and he can not say he is happy as he did not have a good time growing up and he did not grow up to be the man that his mother wanted him to be. He does not thing about death as an enemy, he was calm and not afraid of death.The poet gives the idea that he is almost waiting for death, “watching” out for its coming as one awaits the meeting with a long-lost friend one has almost forgotten and as he does so, once more he is transported back to his old memories and dreams of his happy childhood.

this is not very good but i could not think about anything else to add in this, if you think that i missed something then you can leave a comment and i'll add it :)

about the poem "telephone conversation" by Wole Soyinka

The poem "Telephone Conversation" is by Wole Soyinka 
The poem is about a telephone conversation between a white lady and an african man and the poet shows the the racism in the society.
The african man is the speaker in the poem. The man is searching for a house and he finds one the price is good and the area where it is located is not very populated and not racist. Everything was fine but the man had not 'confessed' the told her that he would hate to waste his time and he is an african, it is sad that he has to feels like he is confessing for a crime when he said that he is african and we also get to know that the area he is in very racist and he has already met racist people there.
After his 'confession' he was greated with silence after some time the lady spoke through her 'lipstic coated lips' and he assumed she had a long gold cigarette holder, this tells that the lady was rich and well bread with manners. She asked 'how dark?' he was shocked at her forgotten manners so he did not answer, the lady thought that he had not understood the question so she asked again that is he was light or very dark as of asking him to choose option A or B.
He could literally smell the stench coming from her deceptive words and see red everywhere around him. Ironically he is the one who is ashamed by the tense and awkward silence which follows, and asks for clarification thinking sarcastically that the lady was really helpful by giving him options to choose from. He suddenly understands what she is trying to ask, and repeats her question to her stating if she would like him to compare himself with chocolate, dark or light? She dispassionately answers and his thoughts change as he describes himself as a West African Sepia as it says in his passport. The lady remains quite for a while, not wanting to admit to her ignorance, but then she gives in to curiosity and asks what that is. He replies that it is similar to brunette and she immediately clarifies that that’s dark.
Now the man had enough of her insensitiveness. He disregards all constraints of formality and mocks her outright, saying that he isn’t all black, the soles of his feet and the palms of his hands are completely white, but he is foolish enough to sit on his bottom so it has been rubbed black due to friction. But as he senses that she is about to slam the receiver on him, he asks her to is she would like to see the colour of his ears herself, pleading her to at least see for herself; only to have the phone slammed on him.

about the poem "Anthem for doomed youth" by Wilfred Owen

this poem "the anthem of doomed youth" the poet wilfred owen is a war poet and the poem is the sad true about the outcome/result of war 

the poet talks about the death of young soldiers in the war and compares the burial and moments before death of a normal person and the death of a soldier during war.  Soldiers of WWI would definitely identify with this poem; no one else (i.e. civilians) could understand everything that they went through during the war. They are fighting a war without knowing the real reasons behind it. They were often poorly equipped. They are the doomed youth of their day.

Line 1: "passing-bells" is a tolling of a bell to announce a soul is dieing. The soldiers are compared to cattle in this line 

Line 2: "anger of the guns" is the only sound that the soldiers hear while they die, they are the only bells that ring for them they do not get to hear the soothing church bells before death.

Lines 3-4: The only prayers these dead and dying men receive are the sounds from the guns. 

Lines 5-8: These men don't go through the religious rights before death; religion is supposed to be about peace and loving your neighbor not about killing them. It would be a mockery to bury them with the same rights as others, because they have basically been trained to take on the devil spirit; killing unscrupulously. They don't hear the sounds of loved ones buzzing around them filled with sorrow; all they hear are the sounds of war, death, and bugles.

Lines 9-11: When a soldier dies in battle it is a common practice to send other soldiers to deliver the news to the family of the fallen soldier. The men who did this job often did not have to say anything to the families; the look in the soldier's eyes or even his presence told them what they longed not to hear.

Lines 12-14: This is in a sense the funeral scene; there is mourning and flowers, all of which the soldier did not receive out on the battle field. The girl's pall is so great that it could be used to cover the soldier's coffin. The "drawing-down of blinds" signifies both death and grief.

this poem seeks to expose the hypocrisy of funerals for soldiers who were senselessly killed on the battle field.

basic explanation of the poem PRELUDES by T.S. Eliot

the poem is about modern life
stanza 1- it show the scene of a winter evening on a very crowded and dirty street we can say that the area has middle class people as it says that you can smell steak being cooked, steak is a middle class man's food

stanza 2-it shows the morning scene where the world wakes up from sleep(temporary death) the morning is not pleasant it smells of stale beer the streets are muddy and have saw dust on it. the people are dragging their feet to coffee stands( it again shows that they are poor and cant afford to make coffee and breakfast at home) the scene is like a play where everything is happening like a routine and everyone is waking up at the same time

stanza 3-the person speaking is still in a half sleepy state and is recalling all the events of the past night. those sordid(immoral) images of last night flicker on the ceiling like shadows. the person wakes up and removes the curling papers from the hair by this we know that its a woman and she holds her yellow soles of feet with her soiled hands which says that her hands and feet are dirty. the woman is most probably an immoral woman(prostitute) who knows what happens on the streets at night when the hardworking people sleep and what they can not understand

stanza 4-\the poem has more emphasis on the imprisonment of men in the urban environments, as it begins,"His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block" this part feels as if some men want to live more freely to be able to see the sky, yet cannot due to the limitations of modern life. In other words perhaps this final stanza is referring to the cravings of men being more free?

that is what is think the poem said i hope this helps the students who want the explanation
i felt like i had to post this after i went across so many sites to find the explanation for my exam
i might post for more poems
i have my english lit 12th board soon so i might not want to open the books again :)