Benefits of Yoga, Analysis of Classic Poems
Benefits of Yoga
Yoga is a full mind and body exercise. A set of specific exercises, called poses, combined with specific breathing techniques and meditation principles are the building blocks of yoga.
- Importance of Yoga in life:
The best yoga workout for us will depend on our individual needs and goals. The benefits of a regular yoga practice are wide-ranging. In general, a complete yoga workout can help to keep our back and joints healthy, improve our overall posture, stretch and strengthen muscles and improve our balance.
- Yoga keeps body fit and healthy:
Yoga involves movement, meditation, and breathing techniques to promote mental and physical well-being. It helps to keep our body fit and healthy. It builds muscle strength. It enhances flexibility. It helps to promote better breathing. It supports heart health. It reduces stress, anxiety, depression, and chronic pain. It improves sleep.
- Stress buster:
Yoga can calm us. It decreases our tension and worries. It gives peace of mind. It makes our mind strong. It builds our confidence. It refreshes soul and mind.
- Meditation helps in focusing:
A well-balanced series of yoga exercises gives us the opportunity to improve our concentration. Meditation in yoga can wipe away the day’s stress, helps us to focus on our needs. We can utilize our inner strength and give all our attention to something. We get solutions to our problems due to meditation. So to keep mind and body fit, do yoga daily
Appreciation of the poem ‘Song of the Open Road’
About the poem/poet and the title: ‘Song of the Open Road’ is a classic travel poem written by Walt Whitman.
- The theme:
This narrative poem centers on the quest for freedom and shunning a life of monotony to take to the open road to course through life. The poet views the road as a space that offers countless opportunities as it can lead people to anywhere they desire to go.
- Poetic style:
The poem is written in free verse, as the lines are unrhymed and of varying lengths
- The language/poetic devices used in the poem:
The poet makes use of simple poetic devices such as Alliteration, Antithesis, Consonance, Inversion, Metaphor, Paradox, and Repetition. He employs Metaphor when he refers to road to actually mean the road of life’, as also when he likens constellations to influential people. The use of these poetic devices helps to convey the message in lucid and expressive narrative and hence adds to the poetic appeal.
- Special features:
The use of parenthesis in the fourth stanza is a distinctive feature of the poem that makes the stanza more of a remark, rather than a continuation of the central topic of the poem. The use of imagery enhances the overall appeal of the poem, with words like long, brown’ describing the road, the words healthy, free describing the world and words like afoot, strong and content describing the poet paint a pretty picture of the poet’s wanderlust.
- Message, values, morals in the poem:
The poem conveys the message that we should not be bound by the routines of ordinary life: instead, we should step out into the open air and live life in a free-spirited manner.
- Your opinion about the poem:
I like the poem for its timeless appeal. It drives me to set out and be free, while leaving my worries behind
About the poem/poet and the title: ‘Indian Weavers’ is a poem by the renowned poet, Sarojini Naidu. The poem has been taken from the poet’s first volume poetry ‘The Golden Threshold, published in 1905. It consists of three stanzas, or quatrains, with two rhyming couplets each. This poem is a metaphor for the three stages of human life-birth, youth, and death
- The theme:
The central theme of the poem is the parallelism that the poet beautifully draws between the three parts of the weaver’s workday and the three stages of human life. The poem has been written in iambic tetrameter and its three stanzas follow the rhyme scheme of ‘aabb’, ‘codd’ and ‘eeff respectively
- Poetic style:
The style used in the poem is simple and lucid, with each stanza beginning with a question to evoke the reader’s interest
- The language/poetic devices used in the poem:
The poetic devices Alliteration, Consonance, Inversion, Metaphor, Repetition, and simile have been employed to enhance the text’s poetic appeal. The use of Simile in ‘blue as the wing of a halcyon wild, Metaphor in break of day to compare it to childhood,
- Special features:
The poet has used vivid imagery in correlating the parts of the day to the stages of life. Almost every line of the poem contains imagery, which paints a picture in the readers’ minds about the weavers weaving’, blue-colored
- Message, values, morals in the poem:
The message being conveyed by the poem is that of the perpetual motion of life. where each stage, characterized by its unique emotions
- Your opinion about the poem:
I like the poem for the color scheme that the poet has chosen for the garments woven 7 by the weaver according to the life-stage of the intended wearer,
Appreciation of the poem ‘The Inchcape Rock’
No stri in the air no stri in the seaThe Inchcape Rock by Robert Southey is a ballad of seventeen stanzas, also called quatrains as they are made of four lines each. The primary theme of the poem is that those who do bad things meet with a bad end at the hands of fate. The idea of ‘what goes around, comes around’ is at the core of the poem. The ballad is composed in a narrative style and the rhyming couplets follow the rhyme scheme aabb. The poem also contains a lot of old English words. The poet embellishes his composition with a number of figures of speech such as Alliteration, Antithesis, Apostrophe, Consonance, Exclamation, Inversion, Metaphor, Onomatopoeia, Personification, Repetition, Simile, Synecdoche, and Transferred Epithet. The highlight of the poem is the vivid Imagery of the bright, shining sun at the beginning to that of hazy sky at the end, or that of the steady ship, light waves, green ocean, birds wheeling around, sinking ship, etc. that the poet employs to convey the message of poetic justice. Its smart usage makes the readers feel like they are a part of the scene being described. The use of symbolism also adds to the beauty of the poem where the Abbot is presented as the symbol of all that is good, while Sir Ralph symbolizes the evil. The Inchcape Rock is symbolic of the trap that Sir Ralph had laid down for others, which he himself fell into. Though the poem has been composed in the 18th century, the message conveyed by it is relevant even today D that one should steer clear of wickedness and malice towards others, as that could be the cause of one’s own doom. The poem ‘s didactic in nature meaning that it conveys a moral through the story depicted in it. The moral of this poems As you sow, so shall you reap. In my opinion, the poem is timeless, as its relevance can never diminish. For as long as humans suffer from the vice of jealousy this poem will keep reminding them of its consequences
‘Have You Earned Your Tomorrow’ by Edgar Guest
‘Have You Earned Your Tomorrow’ by Edgar Guest is an inspirational poem written in rhyming couplets and contains four quatrains (four stanzas of four lines each). The theme or the central idea of the poem is the importance of living each day by being kind and helpful towards others and by making small contributions to improve their lives, as the good deeds done by us today will earn us our tomorrow. It is set to a rhyme scheme of aabbccaaddeeffaa’. The language of the poem is simple and straightforward, which leaves no room for subjectivity. The use of rhetoric questions by the poet, to convey his ideas and inspire the readers, add gravity to the poem and make a unique literary impact. The poet employs a number of poetic devices in the poem like Alliteration, Antithesis, Consonance, Interrogation, Inversion, Metaphor, Personification, Repetition, Synecdoche, Tautology, and Transferred Epithet. The most prominent figure of speech used throughout the poem is Interrogation, wherein the poet asks simple questions to the reader about how he/she treats the people he comes across in his/her life. All these poetic devices serve to impart an earthy sense to the verse and hence enhance its poetic appeal. The tone and type of the poem are inspirational and didactic as the poet tries to urge the readers to be good towards others. A special feature of the poem is the use of visual Imagery in vanish in the throng’, rushed along the way’, ‘slipping fast’ and ‘close your eyes in slumber, which add to the overall appeal of the poem. The other special features are the interrogative lines in which the poem has been written and the repetitive sounds of ay in the first, second, and fourth stanzas, which add an element of unification in the poem. The message being conveyed by the poem is that even the smallest good deed on one’s part is enough to guarantee a better tomorrow for oneself. In my opinion, this poem as a brilliant effort by the poet to prod the readers into questioning their own goodness and help others in any way possible; thereby earning themselves a well-deserved future is anybody happier because you passed
‘Father Returning Home’ by Dilip Chitre
The poem ‘Father Returning Home’ by Dilip Chitre is a biographical sketch of the poet’s father. It is a monologue that deals with the plight of man, where he alienated from the very society that he built. He, thus, goes through the mundane motions of life, having no connections with either the outside world or even his family and suppresses his emotions as there is no one with whom he can share them.
The poem deals with the themes of alienation or estrangement, isolation, and the dissolution of the self in the man-made world.
This two-stanza poem, which has been written in the form of a dramatic monologue, does not follow any rhyme scheme as it is written in free-verse. The lines in the poem clearly depict the miserable state of man in this busy and crowded world
The poet uses numerous figures of speech such as Alliteration, Consonance, Metaphor, Onomatopoeia, Paradox, Personification, Repetition, Simile, and Transferred Epithet. An example of Paradox from the poem is ‘unseeing eyes, as the phrase is self-contradictory.
The language used by the poet is very simple and straightforward. It paints a vivid picture of the tiring routine of the poet’s father and communicates his pathetic condition through the use of various descriptive words
The use of enjambment, where one line of the poem continues into the next, indicates the succession of the worsening state of the father’s condition, whether it’s his isolation from the outside world in the first stanza or his alienation in his own house in the second stanza. The use of imagery is clearly evident in the poem. Whether the poet is sketching the image of his father as an old man with words like eyes dimmed by age, fade homeward, grey platform or describing his father’s appearance soggy shirt and pants black raincoat stained with mud chappals sticky with mud, or comparing the disembarking of his father from the crowded train as a word dropped from a long sentence the strong use of imagery makes the poem thoroughly appealing.
The message that the poem conveys is that of the seclusion of man from the modern world in today’s fast-paced and humdrum life, the only solace that man can find is in his dreams of the past or the future. The poem also communicates the apathy of the society towards the elderly,
The poem ‘Money’ by William H. Davies
The poem ‘Money’ is written by William H. Davies. It is a reflective poem that deals with the poet’s status as both, a rich and a poor man. Based on his narrative, the poet has depicted a connection between money and personal happiness. The theme of the poem is the inverse relationship between money and happiness since the poet had many false friends during his times of richness, and much fewer but real friends when he has become poor. The rhyme scheme of the first four stanzas is abcb and of the last stanza is abab. The poet has beautified the poem by employing numerous figures of speech such as Alliteration, Antithesis, Consonance, Exclamation, Inversion, Onomatopoeia, Metaphor, Metonymy, Simile, and Repetition. An example of Onomatopoeia from the poem is ‘And how their wives do hum like bees where the word hum denotes the sound made by the wives as they constantly talk about their husbands working from morning till night. Among the special features of the poem, Imagery and enjambment are more prominent. The use of imagery can be seen in the phrases ‘came knocking all day at my door’, a child that holds a trumpet that he must not blow, and seen how poor men’s hearts are light’, ‘wives hum like bees’, ‘hear poor ones laugh’, ‘see rich ones colary frown’, ‘go up’ and ‘come down’. Each line of the poem runs into the next line, thus making enjambment a key feature of the poem. The poet follows a simple, narrative style to convey his thoughts. Through this poem, the poet is trying to spread the message that wealth is not required to be truly happy. In fact, happiness lies in having genuine people in life, which makes the poor man truly wealthy; as he might not have monetary wealth or a lot of people in his life, but the ones he does have are true to him, thus making him wealthy in the true sense. In my opinion, the poem aptly describes the allure of money, which often draws a lot of fake people in one’s life. It is only when one is poor does one realize the meaning of true happiness, because that is when one finds out who actually are his/her real friends
She Walks in Beauty
The poem, ‘She Walks in Beauty’ is a poem appreciating female beauty and expressing how outer beauty stems from inner beauty, thus resulting in perfection through harmony. It was written by George, Gordon Byron, well-known as Lord Byron, who was a famous poet from the Romantic era of English literature. At the age of 21, he started a tour of Europe and the Orient (East) after which he composed Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage which made him very popular in England. The title ‘She walks in beauty doesn’t mean that the woman is walking beautifully or that she is simply beautiful. It says that she walks ‘in beauty’, meaning that beauty surrounds her, making her magnificent.
- The primary theme explored by the poet is that of beauty, where he praises a woman he encounters as being flawless. The other themes are that of the delicate harmony between darkness and light as well as the perfect balance between the mind and the body, which makes the woman beautiful even on the inside.
The poem follows a regular rhyme scheme of ‘abab throughout. The language used by the poet is rich and complex, which gives the woman in the poem a very mystical quality. The use of a variety of poetic devices like Alliteration, Antithesis, Consonance, Exclamation, Inversion, Metaphor, Metonymy, Personification, Repetition, and Synecdoche add to the complexity of the poem.
The poet has employed literary devices like enjambment and imagery to enhance its appeal. The visual imagery can be witnessed when the poet compares the woman to a cloudless and starry night, thus laying the foundation of the light and dark theme of the poem. The qualities attributed to the woman’s features mellowed eyes, wavy raven tresses, soft and calm face paint a beautiful picture of an extraordinarily wonderful woman. The main symbolism in the poem is that the poet presents the woman as someone who is a symbol of purity and innocence.
The message that the poet is trying to convey through this poem is that one can be beautiful on the outside only when one feels beautiful on the inside. Though this poem is largely about the poet trying to capture this woman’s paradoxical beauty, which combines the best of dark and bright, the last stanza focuses on how her stunning appearance stems from her calm, composed mind, and sweet, innocent heart. It is her virtuous nature that gives her beauty that is unparalleled.
In my opinion, the poem is full of class and elegance.
Small Towns and the River
is written by Mamang Dai, a writer from North-east India. It is a nature poem, but with a difference that while celebrating nature around her hometown, the poet also laments the destruction of that nature to make way for the lifeless small towns along the river. The poem consists seven stanzas of unequal length and is written in free verse, which means that it does not have a rhyme scheme. In fact, the poet begins by narrating the flip side of small towns situated amidst trees, which remind her of death with their flying dust and howling wind. She treats life and death as transient, but the nature and rituals as permanent. The river has a predominant presence in her poem. It is depicted as the one alongside which lie numerous small towns, the one with a soul, the one which ‘knows, the one which brings grief to inhabitants of the towns in summer, and the one which knows about the immortality of its water. She speaks of life during childhood, full of happiness, transitioning into the later life of anxiety, as symbolized by the growth of the small towns by the river. The lines are short and the verses are lucid. The poet has used poetic devices like Alliteration, Antithesis, Inversion, Metaphor, Onomatopoeia, Personification, Repetition, Simile, and Transferred Epithet to beautify the poem. The extensive use of Personification can be seen in the animate/human qualities attributed to the river the river has a soul”, “it holds its breath” and “the river knows”. The traditional belief that the souls of the dead dwell in nature, and rise with the sun, the cold bamboo that springs back with the sunlight, and the significance of the same in the life, form imagery in the poem. The depiction of the towns during the summer and winter seasons adds to the visual imagery of the poem. The elaborate descriptions of the river as a living entity also make for the special feature of imagery used by the poet. The main message of the poem is the conveying of the poet’s mixed, almost antithetical, feelings about nature and the small towns which lie by the river. While the poet employs nature to imply positivity, she looks upon the small towns as a symbol of death, since they have grown at the cost of nature. Overall, the poem