In the poem "Lament," explain and comment on and explain five literal devices (metaphor, simile, personification, etc.). "Lament" by Gillian Clarke

"Lament" by Gillian Clarke, uses a
variety of poetic devices to describe the many faces of war, all of which she mourns.

Ms. Clarke makes the following comment about her poem:

€˜Lament is an , an expression of grief. It can be a sad, military tune played on a
bugle. The poem uses the title as the start of a list of lamented people, events, creatures and
other things hurt in the war, so after the word €˜lament, every verse, and 11 lines, begin with
€˜for.

War cant be waged without grave damage to every aspect of life. All
the details in the poem came from reports in the media. There were newspaper photographs of
cormorants covered with oil - €˜in his funeral silk. €˜The veil of iridescence on the sand and
€˜the shadow on the sea show the spreading stain of oil from bombed oil wells. The burning oil
seemed to put the sun out, and poisoned the land and the sea. The €˜boy fusilier who joined for
the company, and €˜the farmers sons, in it for the music, came from hearing radio interviews
with their mothers. The creatures were listed by Friends of the Earth as being at risk of
destruction by oil pollution, and €˜the soldier in his uniform of fire was a horrific photograph
of a soldier burnt when his tank was bombed. The ashes of language are the death of truth during
war

"The soldier in his uniform of fire" refers
to a soldier burning when his vehicle is bombed. This is an example of a .

"The cormorant in his funeral silk" usesto describe death surrounding the
bird, describing that it has put on funeral garb in death's wake.

"The
veil of iridescence on the sand" isthat describes the oil slick on the sand from ships
being bombed in the water and washing up on the shore (or "bombed oil wells"). (Kuwait
lies on the edge of the Persian Gulf.)

"...the sun put out" is an
example of . It would be impossible to do so: this is figurative language, not to be taken
literally, and probably refers to the smoke from bombings that seems to obliterate the sun
before the dust settles.

"For the ocean's lap with its mortal
stain" useswith the use of "lap," which brings to mind that constancy of the
ocean, forever moving even in spite of war, but not unchanged ("mortal
stain").

"For [the green turtle's eggs] laid in their nest of
sickness" is a , a contradiction: a nest is supposed to be a safe place where eggs can rest
with their mother until they hatch; with the war raging, the nest is a dangerous
place.

All of these devices are used to bring pictures to the mind of the
reader so that they might visualize what the poet saw in reports on the Gulf War. The
devastation is far-reaching, touching not only the humans pitted against one another, but also
the earth and its "other occupants."

The poem has a haunting affect
on the reader because the images are so vivid. Those damaged by war are brought to the forefront
of the reader's mind, and the powerful verse leaves the reader shaken and touched, by things
occurring half a world away.