"In the Forest" by Thomas Shapcott

 In a nutshell and out!

The poet:

Thomas Shapcott is an Australian poet who was born in Ipswich, Queensland in 1935. Along with being a poet, he is also a novelist, playwright, editor, short story writer and teacher.

"In the Forest" In a Nutshell:

‘In the Forest’ is a wonderful poem that uses various language devices to convey the message that the inhabitants are destroying  the natural landscape and using it for our own benefit.

How has the poem conveyed the relationship between humanity and the landscape?

Humans are destroying their natural landscape, and while they are destroying the physical landscape, the inhabitants escape to their inner and imaginative landscape as they try to ignore their damage, as the damage caused was for their personal benefit. "In the Forest" by Thomas Shapcott.

The first three stanzas in the poem outline the animals in the forest that are tensed and waiting for the axeman to come and destroy their home. The short sentence structure creates dramatic effect and creates many pauses that reflect the silence and pauses in the forest. "The birds wait. The lizards pause and wait."  The connotations of "danger", used in the third stanza conveys the colour red, which disturbs the "the dark of forest", which sends a clear warning to the inhabitants that evil is coming to disturb their landscape. The use of personification of the trees, "The tree is tensed." illustrates that the landscape feels, and the trees have recognised the danger signs. This communicates that the landscape is almost fearful of humanity and its actions.

Stanza five contains symbolism of the forest being very close death. "the one trees sake for its grasping fall and its death to happen and the gash in the forest." The 'one tree' is symbolic of the entire forest and how it is soon to be cut down and destroyed. "The tree is fallen" uses the same symbolism and demonstrates the forest falling and being destroyed and damaged. The juxtaposing symbolism is then used in stanza six, where "the axe" that is destroying the landscape is symbolic for humanity. This symbolism is created through the personification of the axe. "Now, says the axe", illustrates the axe as speaking and deciding when it will cut down the tree. This conveys that humanity is against the landscape, it is us against the landscape.

"The accepted world is quickly broken, the skull of the forest is opened up." The metaphor used in the last stanza demonstrates humans using the landscape for our own selfish purposes. The words 'skull' and 'opened up' illustrate that humans are using the forest, as if it was being used for scientific research, for our own personal gain. "They settle for sleep", the last line of the poem conveys the message that humanity have escaped into their inner and imaginative landscapes through sleep because they would prefer to hide from the harsh truth, that they are destroying their landscape and harming the inhabitants within.

Connections between "In the Forest" by Thomas Shapcott, "Flames and Dangling Wire" by Robert Gray and "Australia" by  A D Hope.

Humans use the landscape for their own benefit and tend to destroy and damage it. "In the Forest" by Thomas Shapcott, "Flames and Dangling Wire" by Robert Gray and "Australia" by  A D Hope have all explored this message and communicated it through various language devices.

Thomas Shapcott's "In the Forest" conveys this message through the use of a metaphor. "The accepted world is quickly broken, the skull of the forest is opened up." The metaphor used in the last stanza demonstrates humans using the landscape for our own selfish purposes. The words 'skull' and 'opened up' illustrate that humans are using the forest, as if it was being used for scientific research, for our own personal gain.

"Flames and Dangling Wire" by Robert Gray illustrates this message through a simile and repetition. "the smoke of different fire in a row, like fingers spread and dragged to smudge." This simile used in the first stanza conveys the extreme power of the human hand on the natural landscape. The connotations of 'smoke' and 'fire' illustrate hell, and how with the power of our hands we have created our world to be a living hell on earth. The repetition of fire throughout the poem demonstrates how humans are choking our natural landscape with the pollution that we are creating, for our personal benefit and gain.

"Australia" by  A D Hope is a poem that through the use of a simile expresses the destruction caused to the Australian landscape by humans. "And her five cities, like five teeming sores, Each drains her." The personification of the landscape as 'she' demonstrates the land as mother nature, who cares and nurtures the land and its inhabitants. The simile used represents the damage caused by humans and the use of the word 'sores' illustrates humans as painful and something that the landscape looks forward to see leaving.

All three poems communicate, through the use of numerous language techniques, the message that humans use the landscape for their own benefit and tend to destroy and damage it.

I hope you enjoyed reading my first post :)