Winter Swans by Owen Sheers: what it is about, its context, and how Sheers uses language, form and structure.
Key quotations and how to analyse them, and the poems in the cluster it compares well with, with similarities and differences.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'The clouds had given their all', 'two days of rain and then a break', 'gulping for breath at our feet', 'silent and apart', 'with a show of tipping in unison', 'They mate for life you said as they left', 'swum the distance between us', 'like a pair of wings settling after flight'.
Form: six three-line stanzas and a final couplet, and pathetic fallacy from the storm to the calm.
Context: a couple after an argument, and swans as a symbol of faithful love.
Comparisons with Neutral Tones, Letters from Yorkshire and When We Two Parted.
