The Great Scarf of Birds is a poem by John Updike. The title refers to the many birds that are mentioned throughout the poem. The poem is about the speaker’s love for nature, and how the beauty of the world around him makes him feel. The speaker also talks about how he feels when he is away from nature, and how he longs to be back in its embrace. The Great Scarf of Birds is a beautiful poem that will make you appreciate the world around you even more.
Poets employ certain grammatical structures in order for their works to be interpreted in an artistic and distinctive manner. The poem is written creatively using organization, diction, and figurative language. In John Updike’s The Great Scarf of Birds, the speaker is understood through the use of all these techniques. When the poet begins speaking of what he remembers, he employs vivid colors to paint his environment and career stage. Ripe apples were trapped like crimson fish in the nets (Line 3). This represents his mature or close-to-dying age.
The poem The Great Scarf of Birds is about a man who is looking back at his life and all the things he has done. The speaker in the poem is an older man, and he is reflecting on his life. The poem is written in first person point of view, which allows the reader to understand the speaker’s feelings and thoughts.
The poem is also written in free verse, which gives the poem a more personal feel. The Great Scarf of Birds is a reflective poem that uses organization, diction, and figurative language to help the reader understand the speaker’s thoughts and feelings.
The title The Great Scarf of Birds refers to the speaker’s memories being like a scarf made up of different colors and patterns. The colors in the scarf represent the different emotions that the speaker is feeling. The poem starts off with the speaker talking about his childhood and how he would go out and explore the woods.
The scarf is also a metaphor for the bird’s path and journey. The speaker states that “the great scarf of birds / never ends” (lines 21-22). The final stanza compares the speaker’s life to the scarf of birds. The speaker says that he wants to be like the birds, free to go where they please.
The image of the birds in this poem are symbolic of freedom and Updike uses them to contrast the speaker’s feelings of entrapment. The speaker is envious of the birds and their freedom to come and go as they please. The poem ends on a note of hope, with the speaker saying that maybe one day he will be able to join the birds on their journey.
In lines 20-21, he describes the flock as a living being while describing this cloud as one that paled and pulsed. This is comparable to the movement of a heart beat. He also depicts the starling flock as a rock, depicting it as something permanent, sturdy, and indestructible. Reality is set in to the speaker in the next stanza. He is engrossed by his own world and does not see it as lovely. From afar, it appears beautiful but up close, it becomes jaded.
The speaker tries to reconcile his own world with the natural world. The starlings are a force that cannot be stopped and the speaker is just an insignificant part of it all. The final stanza brings everything full circle. The speaker is now back in his own world, but he has been changed by what he has seen. The image of the scarf will stay with him forever and it will be a reminder of the beauty in nature that he was too blind to see before.
Then he looks up and sees the starlings covering the golf fairway. He notes in lines 39-40, I had nothing like it in nature, which was so broad but grass. Grass is green and represents life beginning, growing, and renewing. The birds, which are a symbol of death, cover the grass, which is a symbol of life.
In the sixth stanza, he describes one bird as flying again into the sky while the rest of the flock follows behind it. He now refers to them as a lady’s scarf: something delicate and lovely that differs from his earlier reference to them as louds , which were unpleasant things that hovered above him
The Great Scarf of Birds, by John Updike, is a poem that uses symbols to contrast life and death. The green grass is a symbol of life while the birds are a symbol of death. The single bird flying into the sky is a symbol of hope while the rest of the flock following is a symbol of beauty.
The poet compares the liberation of the birds to his formerly cumbersome heart in the last stanza. When the birds have gone, the grass reappears. This is a symbol of nature’s circle of life, which comforts him. In John Updike’s The Great Scarf of Birds, the poet begins by being afraid of his stage in life but then is consoled by thinking about the flocks’ flight, which becomes a metaphor for life’s continual cycle. Diction, structure, and figurative language usage further highlight this poem.
The Great Scarf of Birds poem is an excellent example of how nature can provide comfort in our darkest times. The poem begins with the speaker being worried about his place in life. The first line, I was old and cold and lost, sets the tone for the rest of the poem. The speaker is feeling down and out and is not sure where he belongs anymore. The next few lines talk about how he sees the world around him. The grass is seen as a burden, something that needs to be mowed down. The sky is a great big nothing and the sun is just a ball of fire. The speaker is clearly not in a good place mentally.
However, things start to change when he sees the birds. The first time he sees them, he is scared. He thinks they are going to attack him. However, he soon realizes that they are just migrating and they are not a threat. This changes his perspective on the world around him. The birds become a symbol of hope and life continuing on.
The fact that they come back every year is a sign that there is always something to look forward to, no matter how dark things may seem. The Great Scarf of Birds is a powerful poem that shows how nature can provide comfort in times of need. The poem is well-written and uses language effectively to create a vivid image for the reader. The organization of the poem is also well done, with each stanza building upon the last to create a cohesive whole.
