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Sunstrike Poem Notes By Douglas Livingstone
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This document contains all summary, analysis and questions (inc of memos)
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Sunstrike by Douglas LivingstoneA solitary prospector
Staggered, locked in a vision
Of slate hills that capered
On the molten horizon.
Waterless, he came to where
A river had run, now a band
Flowing only in ripples
Of white unquenchable sand.
A handful of alluvial
Diamonds leered back, and more: mixed
In the scar, glinted globules
Of rubies, emeralds, onyx.
And then he was swimming in fire
And drinking, splashing hot halos
Of glittering drops at the choir
Of assembled carrion crows.
Imagine that you’re in a sand desert by yourself, and it's incredibly hot, and you're staggering along.
You've been there for quite a long time. You don't know where you are really, you’re really thirsty,
almost delirious with thirst and dehydration. And the reason why you're there is because you're looking
for gold and diamonds, minerals, so that you can become rich quick. Yet you haven't managed to find
any, you don't know where you are, you think you're going to die soon.
Fortunately, you see a river flowing ahead, but when you get there you discover that it was a mirage. In
fact, it wasn't actually a river at all. It's just a dry riverbed with no water in it. And in one desperate
attempt left, he starts digging crazily for water, in the hope to find some. In doing so doing so, he comes
across a handful of rubies, onyx and diamonds. He throws them up in the air because he realizes that
they can't save him now, even though that that is what he was looking for in the first place.
, Though these jewels are so valuable, at this moment in time, they are of no benefit to him. All he can
see are a the crows waiting for him to die, so that they can peck at his dead carcass. That is the gist of
the poem Sunstrike, written by South African Douglas Livingston.
At first glance the poem appears to be really simple, but in actuality it’s alot more complex when you
really analyze it.
Title: Grammatically speaking, there's no word such as “sun strike”. We have sunstroke, when you've
been exposed too much sun, and it causes you to faint or get ill. The word “strike” is used in reference to
finding money. In other words, finding something very valuable. becoming “rich quick”.
The word “Sunstrike” can be referred to as a coined word. In other words, it's a word that has been
made up by using or combining two or more words. So we're combining sunstroke and we're combining
striking, striking it rich.
Pun: the word “Sunstrike” is also a pun in that it's a play on the word sunstroke, while strike refers to
getting rich.
what figure of speech is the title? it's a pun.
A solitary prospector: solitary means alone, like being placed in solitary confinement. He's by himself.
He’s all alone. There is an indefinite article in the word “prospector” as its just one Prospector, a solitary
Prospector. In addition to that, a prospect is someone who looks for gold or any form minerals.
“staggered”: he's tired, his weak, he's extremely dehydrated because he's been out in the desert for so
long, locked in a vision of slate hills that keep it on them.
Locked: if something is locked it means you can't access it. So it's almost like he can't escape the
situation which he's found himself in. And he's locked in a vision. He's a prisoner of thirst. It's as though
he's stuck in a vision, the only thing that he can possibly think of is finding water. At this point in time
he's almost delirious, to be delirious means you’re incoherent, sort of going mad in a way. This is
because he's so thirsty. If you’ve ever experienced some form of thirst, which lasted for about a day, you
might realize you will actually find that your mental capacity is far reduced. In this situation we’re talking
about days of thirst.
He's locked in this vision of slate hills. Slate is a type of metamorphic rock, it's gray in color. Yet the hills
that he sees which are of sand, and not actually made of slate. Alright, so that's a metaphor because the
heels have been compared to that of slate.
That capered: to caper means to do a little dance. So on the one hand, creates an imagery of hills that
are flowing up and down, like sand dunes that rise and fall. more importantly, if the hills are dancing at
him, it as though nature is laughing at him, the reason being that he's come here to try and take from
nature. And nature's now saying, if you want to be greedy, now we are going to laugh at you.
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