Patrick Kavanaghs

PATRICK KAVANAGH POEMS

Introduction
My second task is to pick two poems from the works of the poet Patrick Kavanagh. The two poems I will be analysing are ON RAGLAN ROAD and MEMORY OF MY FATHER.

ON RAGLAN ROAD
The poem On Raglan Road stood out to me when I read it, it was very interesting compared to other poems belonging to Patrick Kavanagh, his other poems were very hard to interpret but with the poem On Raglan Road I could understand and fall deeply into the poem.
The poem is in paired rhymes, it is quite a long poem, it has a lot of information and detail which you could analyse down to every last detail but still you would to say know if you the reader were right or wrong it is left to the imagination of the reader to make up your own mind in what the poet is trying to say.
The poets tone is of a loss of happiness,regret,couldn’t resist temptation, ignored all the signs of danger, he was intense with the beauty of lady, magical feelings of happiness, the nature around him and that of Dublin. These are all of the tones I felt the poet was describing in the poem.
The language the poet uses is easy to interpret , from analysing the poem the poet had fallen deeply in love with a beautiful lady which he knew he shouldn’t have. In the second line of the poem he says ‘THAT HER DARK HAIR WOULD WEAVE A SNARE THAT I WOULD ONE DAY RUE’, meaning he would regret going with this woman he knew when he first met her he loved her but that did not stop him as he chose to walk the enchanted way.
The poet describes their brief encounter in Dublin where they went along Grafton street, he recalls this in particular as I think this is where they first had their first passionate encounter. The queen of hearts he refers her to a nursery rhymn also in this paragraph he says he loved her to much but he himself had thrown it away.
The third paragraph he gave her gifts of the mind which was poetry this is what scared the woman away, he feels he has thrown away his happiness...