Piano and Drums

1. Piano and Drums

2. Key themes • Contrast between sophistication and barbarianism • Fear of the unknown • Visual and auditory imagery • Speaker is experiencing the advancement of both cultures

3. Literary techniques • ‘When at break of day at a riverside’ • Break of day has double meaning • Start of a new day and start of a archaic civilization • Riverside represents jungles, wilderness, tribes • ‘jungle drums telegraphing’ • Juxtaposes primal culture and modern society • ‘like mystic rhythm, urgent, raw like bleeding flesh’ • List of three, present participles, simile • Bleeding flesh emphasizes brutality, animalism, primitivism • Urgent, raw connotes fear and aggression

4. Literary techniques • ‘primal youth and the beginning,’ • They have just been born • Contrasts the establishment of sophistication • ‘panther ready to pounce, leopard snarling about to leap’ • Present participles, alliteration, animalism • Aggressiveness and determination to defend their culture • ‘Hunters crouch with spears poised;’ • Emphasis on brutality • Semi colon emphasizes a dramatic pause • Readiness to defend their culture and make their mark on the world

5. Literary techniques • ‘And my blood ripples, turns torrent, topples my years’ • Conjunctives show continual suffering of colonization • Imagery of fear • Topples my years personifies experience being thrown away for helplessness • ‘I’m in my mother’s lap a suckling;’ • Speaker feels inferior, helpless like a baby • Knows nothing of the barbarian world

6. Literary techniques • ‘I’m walking simple paths with no innovation;’ • Receding away from sophistication • Life is simple like a child’s view of the world • Stanza is to represent colonization • A new beginning, starting off young in a new world ‘naked warmth of hurrying feet with groping hearts in green leaves and wild flowers pulsing.’ • Present participles show sense of urgency to establish themselves • Naked warmth shows security • Naturalistic imagery represents childlike freedom

7. Literary techniques • ‘Then I hear a wailing piano solo speaking of complex ways in tear-furrowed concerto;’ • Shift in tone to express the western world • Intrusive auditory imagery interrupting previous stanza – his conjuration of safety in his head • Life in a new world can be hard, one can miss their own culture • Complex represents sophistication of the world they came from • Wailing piano is melodic • Concerto shows sophisticated society is special as it stands out

8. Literary techniques • ‘of far away lands and new horizons with coaxing diminuendo, counterpoint, and crescendo.’ • Far away lands and new horizons represents opportunity and colonization of other places • Combination of decreases and increases in volume of the piano connotes excitement at the adventure

9. Literary techniques • ‘But lost in the labyrinth of its complexities,’ • Labyrinth emphasizes sophistication of modern society • Reality of colonization and exploration is difficult ‘it ends in the middle of a phrase at a daggerpoint.’ • Links to the end of the first stanza with ‘spears poised;’ • Emphasizes another shift in tone because the music suddenly ends, signifying that the cultures have merged • Daggerpoint suggests abruptness

10. Literary techniques • ‘And I lost in the morning mist of an age at a riverside keep wandering in the mystic rhythm of jungle drums and the concerto.’ • Relates to first stanza • Morning mist shows a new beginning but with uncertainties of what the future holds for the two cultures • Enjambment creates free flowing rhythm and suggests speed of the merging of the two cultures • Lost and wandering shows how immersed the speaker is in the two cultures • Repetition of mystic rhythm to emphasize so much that is unknown • Jungle drums and concerto is a juxtaposition that has finally been joined at the end of the poem