i want to get the meaning and poetic techniques of the poem machines by daniel whitehead hicky?

Answer 1

Very interesting poem for study and analysis.

In the first place, notice that it is a double sonnet, each section of fourteen lines rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The first section/sonnet is an extended metaphor--a personification really, comparing the machinery of a power plant to human workers: with arteries, muscles, bowels, a pulse, "shouting their songs." The sheer repetition and noise of the machinery is not only described but evoked in the sound of the language itself: "Derrick on derrick, wheel on rhythmic wheel, / Swift band on whirring band, lever on lever," "grinding, grinding, hour on hour." Notice the monotonous sense of mechanic repetitions captured in strong nouns and verbals repeated in each phrase. Notice, too, that this sonnet/section takes place at night with the power plant "blinding a village with light, damming a river." The paradox in this phrase is apparent: light should enable one to see, but the bright light put out by the power plant is "blinding." I think there is also an intentional pun in the phrase: "damming the river" is damning the river. The concluding couplet of this sonnet brings in the human voice that is drowned out by the noise of the machinery, its "cry / Shaking the earth and thundering to the sky."

By contrast, the second sonnet/section is set in the daytime beginning with the quiet, slow sunrise at dawn. The poem proceeds with a catalog of nature imagery (hilltops, wildflowers, ferns, brook, butterflies, clouds, and the like), but with a negative catalog (if you will) of the elements of machinery NOT needed to bring these images to life: no motors, no derrick, no pulley, no wheel, no engine, no turbine. The machinery "muscled with iron" is contrasted with the "silence of a swan"; and there are multiple puns in the concluding phrase "beat the engines."

The message of the poem is a commonplace comparison of the beauties and simplicity of the rhythms of nature with the ugliness and complexity of the rhythms of machinery. Curiously, this paean to freedom and "naturalness" is expressed in a rigid form of imabic pentameter in a carefully sustained sonnet form--NOT in the free verse that a Walt Whitman would have insisted as being more appropriate for the subject of the second section. (Cf. his "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer.")

Even so, the poem is a fascinating tour de force. There are other features to which you may also want to give some attention; for instance, the internal sounds of the lines: subtle alliteration, insistent assonance and consonance: the rasping rrrr's of the machinery, the liquid llll's of nature, and the like, concluding with the soft musical n's of the final couplet: "With all the feathered sileNce of a swaN / They whirr and beat the eNgiNes of the dawN." And, finally, there is the irony of the implied metaphor in those lines, comparing Nature to the machinery with its "whirr" and "engines," just as the poem began by comparing the strength of the machinery to the human body.

Enjoy!

Answer 2

Daniel Whitehead

Answer 3

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MACHINES
I hear them grinding, grinding, through the night,
The gaunt machines with arteries of fire,
Muscled with iron, boweled with smoldering light;
I watch them pulsing, swinging, climbing higher,-
Derrick on derrick, wheel on rhythmic wheel,
Swift band on whirring band, lever on lever,
Shouting their songs in raucous notes of steel,
Blinding a village with light, damming a river.
I hear them grinding, grinding, hour on hour,
Cleaving the night in twain, shattering the dark
With all the rasping torrents of their power,
Groaning and belching spark on crimson spark.
I cannot hear my voice above their cry
Shaking the earth and thundering to the sky.
Slowly the dawn comes up. No motors stir
The brightening hilltops as the sunrise flows
In yellow tides where daybreak's lavender
Clings to a waiting valley. No derrick throws
The sun into the heavens and no pulley
Unfolds the wildflowers thirsting for the day;
No wheel unravels ferns deep in a gulley;
No engine starts the brook upon its way.
The butterflies drift idly, wing to wing,
Knowing no measured rhythm they must follow,
No turbine drives the white clouds as they swing
Across the cool blue meadows of the swallow.
With all the feathered silence of a swan
They whirr and beat-the engines of the dawn.
-DANIEL WHITEHEAD HICKY.

good luck

Answer 4

Well you could always just line them up along the wall get yourself 3 baseballs and make a sign yay tall that says: "Crack Any 3 Plates Wins!" Then when the Munchkins arrive you can shout "YAYYYYY!!! LET'S GIVE IT A SPIN." Then proceed to give them a grand tour of the freak show you be cultivating behind your fridge door, down below in your space saver drawer. Why it's Leggy Lady MaDam Space Potato from Idaho. Why you naughty little rhymes whit core! How'd she get in there? And I'm like, I dunno. Um, but I swear to gosh I haven't seen me no TV yet. I'm afraid to look because they usually sing and dance and dress better than I do.

Answer 5

If you want to get the meaning and especially the technique, then you need to read the poem aloud a few times.

This poem screams to be read aloud. If you read it aloud a few times, the techniques will become obvious. And the poem will unlock itself to you and the meaning should become obvious too.