Here’s a full analysis of the poem ‘Amends’, tailored towards GCSE/IGCSE students but also suitable for those studying Rich at a higher level.
Includes:
VOCABULARY
STORY/SUMMARY
FORM/STRUCTURE
LANGUAGE
THEMES
CONTEXT
ESSAY QUESTIONS
Amends
“Nights like this: on the cold apple-bough
a white star, then another
exploding out of the bark:
on the ground, moonlight picking at small stones...”
Adrienne Rich
(Full poem unable to be reproduced due to copyright)
VOCABULARY
Unavailing — not working / useless effort.
Hangared — inside a hangar (shelter where planes are kept).
Fuselage — the main body of an aircraft, where fuel is stored.
To make amends — undo the wrongdoing / falling out of a situation
Tremulous — trembling, shaking, quivering.
Crop-dusting plane — A type of aeroplane that is small, yellow, and used to spread fertiliser over fields
by farmers.
Trailers — transportable (usually metal) cabins where people can sleep and cook, used in camping but
sometimes people also live in them permanently.
STORY / SUMMARY
The story is set at night, in a natural setting — out of the apple, tree light
explodes, each piece of light is a “white star”. In the second stanza, the
moonlight is picking at the stones, rising with the white surf on the sea,
licking the broken ledges, flowing up cliffs, and flicking across tracks. In the
third stanza it continues, but also shifts focus to man-made elements, such
as the crop-dusting plane that is resting in the hangar, and the sand-and-
gravel quarry. In the final stanza, the light goes into the trailers, which are
shaking with sleep. It rests upon the eyes of people sleeping there, the poet
observes that this is “to make amends” — to fix something that has broken
or gone wrong.
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