Orchids By Hazel Simmons-McDonald

 Orchids:

Poem reading: 

If {Between the lines~}Adam Webb Comes up while watching he's a fantabulous person to watch [or play in the background] for LIT help... that dood is a MASTER AT SAVING PEOPLE AT LAST MINUTE!!

Link to Adam Webb's youtube video; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM72MKfOGYc

Orchids I leave this house box piece of the five-week life I’ve gathered. I’ll send them on to fill spaces in my future life. One thing is left a spray of orchids someone gave from a bouquet one who makes a ritual of flower-giving sent. The orchids have no fragrance but purple petals draw you to look at the purple heart. I watered them once when the blossoms were full blown like polished poems. I was sure they’d wilt and I would toss them out with the five-week litter. They were stubborn. I starved them. They would not die. This morning the bud at the stalk’s tip unfurled. I think I’ll pluck the full-blown blooms press them between pages of memory. Perhaps in their thin dried transparency I’ll discover their peculiar poetry. Hazel Simmons-Mc Donald

Qualities of the Orchid;

• Resilient

• Admirable

• Bold

• Steadfast

• Tough(ness)

• It never gives up

These are the qualities that have been identified that the poet admires.

• At the beginning the poet disregards the flower then at the end her attitude changes positively, as she begins to admire the orchid.

• The poet also wants to find the same qualities in herself.

• She is moving on but a memory refuses to die.

• This symbolizes the poet/ person not wanting to leave or move on from them.

• The poet’s use of blank verse (lacks rhyming pattern) effectively captures the persona’s struggle between hope and despair as he narrates (tells his life-story) with a tone that similarly and occasionally shifts between feelings of optimism and pessimism, adding to a mood that varies between contemplative serenity and foreboding uncertainty.

Themes;

• Relentlessness

• Human cruelty/ Survival/Death< Refers to the poet trying to kill the orchid

• Nature's beauty

• Contemplation

• Resilience

• Curiosity

• Pessimism

Literary devices used;

• Symbolism- 

• The orchid is a flower of magnificence that brings a universal message of love, beauty, wisdom, thoughtfulness, luxury, strength, refinement,  affection, new growth and development.

• “This elegant flower should make you feel pampered. Purple is the colour of royalty. Orchids are generally regarded as symbolic of rare and delicate beauty…. Their graceful appearance draws immediate attention, and their reputation as an exotic and unusual flower evokes a sense of refinement and innocence”.

• Alliteration

• 
  

• Personification

• Simile

• lines 13-14 

• The orchid’s full blown blossoms are being compared to a polished poem. The word polished in this comparison implies perfection, shiny and pleasant to read.

• Contrast

Mood or Atmosphere;

The mood of the poem is pensive, or thoughtful. The persona is thinking about the lack of value that she places in the orchid.

Tone of the Poem;
The tone of the poem is one of almost bored musing.