[131] A Martian Sends A Postcard Home
Guest poem sent in by Vikram Doctor <vikdoc@>
| A Martian Sends A Postcard Home |
Caxtons are mechanical birds with many wings
and some are treasured for their markings -
they cause the eyes to melt
or the body to shriek without pain.
I have never seen one fly, but
sometimes they perch on the hand.
Mist is when the sky is tired of flight
and rests its soft machine on ground:
then the world is dim and bookish
like engravings under tissue paper.
Rain is when the earth is television.
It has the property of making colours darker.
Model T is a room with the lock inside -
a key is turned to free the world
for movement, so quick there is a film
to watch for anything missed.
But time is tied to the wrist
or kept in a box, ticking with impatience.
In homes, a haunted apparatus sleeps,
that snores when you pick it up.
If the ghost cries, they carry it
to their lips and soothe it to sleep
with sounds. And yet they wake it up
deliberately, by tickling with a finger.
Only the young are allowed to suffer
openly. Adults go to a punishment room
with water but nothing to eat.
They lock the door and suffer the noises
alone. No one is exempt
and everyone's pain has a different smell.
At night when all the colours die,
they hide in pairs
and read about themselves -
in colour, with their eyelids shut.
-- Craig Raine
|
A poem I like because of its way of startling us into new ways of looking at
things - which is something I feel is very basic to poetry. Startling
similes is Craig Raine's specialty, and this poem in particular displays his
skill to such virtuoso effect that it lead to a new school of so-called
"Martian" poetry. But I think that Raine is participating in a very ancient
poetic ancient tradition. If you look at the poem as a series of riddles to
be deciphered by the reader, then that takes us back centuries to the riddle
poems in Anglo Saxon literature. Anyway, have fun decoding the images.
Biographical details:
Born 1944 in Co.Durham. Educated at Oxford. Has worked as a lecturer at
Oxford and as a freelance writer. Edited Quarto 1979-80. Lives in Oxford.
Publications include The Onion, Memory (1978), A Martian Sends A Postcard
Home (1979) and A Free Translation (1981).
Lit.Crit.:
....Where Heaney, Harrison and Dunn have extended the boundaries of their
work gradually over the years, Raine asserted his freedom immediately and
with spectral confidence. The same is true of Christopher Reid, whose
first book, like Raine's, was published in the late 1970s and instantly
identified as 'Martian'. Although two substantially different poetic
personalities, Raine and Reid share a delight in outrageous simile and
like to twist and mix language in order to revive the ordinary. Both refer
a great deal to children for this is one way of viewing the commonplace
with wonder and innocence. In many respects their work seems to fit
Dr.Johnson's description of Metaphysical poetry - 'heterogeneous ideas...
yoked by violence together." To put it another way: they have demonstrated
that if a poem draws a line round an incident or area of experience,
observations which fall within its circumference seek each other out and
establish relationships. though such connections and relationships are
artfully arranged, it would be wrong to think that the Martians ingenuity
prevents them from expressing emotion: their way of looking is also a way
of feeling. It is a point which other poets have begun to recognize and
explains why Raine and Reid have proved so influential in a comparatively
short time. What might, a few years ago, have looked far fetched and
fanciful now appears as part of a new confidence in the poetic
imagination....
-- from The Penguin Book Of Contemporary British Poetry
Vikram Doctor
From: "Brenda Marek" <brenda@>
A curious year 11 student can not find a definition for "Caxton"
"Caxtons" WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY????????? PLEASE HELP. I can only
find information regarding William Caxton the printer of the 1400's.
Your help would be invaluable.
Tyrone
brenda@
From: "Russell Martin" <branmart@>
"Caxtons" is used to describe books. William Caxton was the first to
print books in England, according to my Literature book.
L.M.
From: "david angel" <davidangel32@>
Well, I don't know what caxtons are either. But might they not be either
cigarettes or banknotes?
davidangel32@
From: "Glenda & Dan DuChene" <flippercat@>
My class studied this poem last year in grade 9 and we successfully
deciphered all of the figurative language and what it is a reference to.
Caxtons are indeed books. The model T referred to is a car. The haunted
apparatus is none other than a telephone. The sufferering and pain? Its
using the bathroom. And the last 4 lines are about dreaming.
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Schüler_Katharinen-Gymnasium?= <schueler@>
I am bored!!!!!!!!
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Schüler_Katharinen-Gymnasium?= <schueler@>
nice
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Schüler_Katharinen-Gymnasium?= <schueler@>
The martian could also have talked about some other things, for example:
"They have little suns as pets and these suns are happy when you touch the
walls and begin to shine. But when you do it a second time they get bored
and stop shining."
Guess what that could be!
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Schüler_Katharinen-Gymnasium?= <schueler@>
The Martian saw a lot of things on earth, which he did not know. But he
could also see a tree and describe it like this:
a living being, but it can not move
it only can grow and become greater
We like this poem, but it was a bit difficult to understand.
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Schüler_Katharinen-Gymnasium?= <schueler@>
Hello!thank you veeeeeeery much for your interpretations.After reading the
poem the first time we didn't understand anything, but after reading your
interpretations we were able to understand what the poem is about.
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Schüler_Katharinen-Gymnasium?= <schueler@>
very nice,indeed!
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Schüler_Katharinen-Gymnasium?= <schueler@>
We discussed this poem in class, and we are the opinion that this is a nice
poem, because it tries to look at society through an outsider's eye. It
contains humor and irony, and tries to achieve a sort of distant objetivity.
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Schüler_Katharinen-Gymnasium?= <schueler@>
What?
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Schüler_Katharinen-Gymnasium?= <schueler@>
When?
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Schüler_Katharinen-Gymnasium?= <schueler@>
Where?
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Schüler_Katharinen-Gymnasium?= <schueler@>
Why?
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Schüler_Katharinen-Gymnasium?= <schueler@>
Who cares anyway?Stupid Poem!
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Schüler_Katharinen-Gymnasium?= <schueler@>
Hello folks,
we had the pleasure to interpret the poem of Craig Raine-but we wouldn't
have been able to interpret it without your aid. We have discussed how the
martian could have explained other facilities, institutions and ways of
behaviour.
We have written a riddle for you-hope you will like it
A window makes it easy to write, to handle a special kind of television. A
button is pressed to free the world for information
From: =?Windows-1252?Q?Schüler_Katharinen-Gymnasium?= <schueler@>
Craig Raine
Born in 1945 in County Durham located in the North of England
Father Norman was an ameture Boxer
Raine’s wife was Ann Pasternak Slater
Graduated from Oxford, after graduation he was appointed a lecturer
From 1981 to1991 Raine was a poetry editor for the English publisher Faber
and Faber, when he left , Raine went back to Oxford to teach
Much of his work is designed to help the reader to see the world from a
fresh point of view
Established a reputation for his dashing way with metaphors
Raine biggest work is "History: The Home Movie" that took him tem years to
do
Summary of Poem
"A Martian Sends a Postcard Home" is a poem with seventeen stanzas. All of
the stanzas have two lines. At first the title of this poem was kind of
tricky for me because it made me think that it was about an actual martian.
It took me a while to figure out that he was talking about things that
happen in everyday life in earth. Basically something a martian would send
home if he was on a vacation to earth is what the poem focuses on.
Tone
The tone of this poem is rather imaginative because it gives us things from
a martian’s point-of-view. This is pretty imaginative! It is also humorous
as you read it because the riddles, or metaphors, are fun to try to figure
out. It is a pleasurable tone because it isn’t really confusing or hard to
figure out what Raine is talking about.
Purpose
I think that Raine wrote this poem to give his mind a rest from the real
world. Maybe he wrote it for pleasure and humor. I think this would be an
enjoyable type of poem to write. Raine wanted his readers to be humored.
Analaysis (DMT),
Raine uses several riddles in this poem to show what the martian sees when
he comes to earth. He does a very good job in doing this. For example, the
first stanza of the poem is talking about a book. Caxton was the first
English printer of books. Mechanical birds with wings refers to the pages in
a book. By saying they are treasured for their markings means that if a
person enjoys reading a book they will treasure it. Raine also refers to a
book in the next four lines.
Stanza six comes out straight forward and lets us realize that Raine is
talking about fog. It uses words such as clouds. By using context clues we
understand the true interpretation.
When Raine says "rain is when the earth is television" he means that the TV
is snowy. This is a very good metaphor for rain because it does kind of make
the TV look like it is raining.
The seventh and eighth stanzas are talking about a car. This is simple as
Raine refers to "Model T." Raine gives good examples of the car in a martian
’s eyes. For instance, "Model T is a room with the locks inside." I like
this line a lot because I have never seen a car in this way before. Raine
says it is a room because you go inside of the car and you are away from the
outside world. You need a key to turn the car on and off and to lock the
car.
In this next stanza Raine did a great job of describing a watch or clock.
"Ticking with impatience" is right of the button. That is all a watch and
clock do is tick for twenty four hours a day.
Stanza ten, eleven, and twelve are on the subject of a telephone. All the
phone is what Raine writes in this poem. It does not do anything until you
pick it up and that is what Raine is saying. The cries of the ghost is when
it rings. Then you "talk to it", or answer it and when you are finished "put
it back to sleep" or hang it up. Yes, we do "deliberately wake it and tickle
it with a finger" when we answer it or call someone else.
A "punishment room with just water" is a bathroom. I just love these next
three stanzas because I love the bathroom. I just don’t think of it as a
"punishment room." When Raine writes "only the young are allowed to suffer
openly" he is talking about a baby getting their diapers changed in the
open. Yet adults have to go to the bathroom and suffer our pain alone. Raine
had exceptional use of metaphors to describe the bathroom.
The last two stanzas are about sleeping and dreaming. "When the colours die"
is when we go to bed. "Reading about ourselves with our eyelids shut" is
basically saying we are dreaming of ourselves. Raine put this at a good spot
in the poem because the end of the poem symbolizes the end of the day.
From: "10.184.129.1" <schueler@>
To leave the ground,
they use great birds.
But their wings don`t move
and they make a loud noise.
They listen to music
and hear voices.
But there`s no one making them.
And people can`t answer.
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Schüler_Katharinen-Gymnasium?= <schueler@>
This poem is written from a very unusual and interessting point of view!Also
is the description of the world we live on very methaphorical described.So a
kind of excitement comes over the reader while reading it.
From: "Alitrev Vertila" <alitrev_da_ender@>
An interesting poem. Simple yet highly effective. After i read it i began to think not of how martians would look but how we would look. It has managed to provoke my emotions to view life differently. How strange are we? I think his efective use of language to make it seem all the more strange is highly creative, yet so simple a person like myself could create a
poem much similar to this. Raine should be accredited well for his master piece. Simply marvelous!Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
From: Jonathan Grover <groverj@>
This was a tough and interesting poem. I liked it a lot; it was challengin.
I wrote my own Rein-styled stanza, see if anyone can solve it!
The green leaves
Found not in water or air,
That, being weak as feathers,
destroy and corrupt all,
With soft sounds
that allure and decieve
good luck!
From: "Linda Sykes" <Linda@>
i did this poem for an essay at school and i think that the first thing
is a book, then modal t is the car, the nxt one is a telephone, then a
toilet and then going to sleep/dreaming. I enjoyed the poem and
hopefully will get a good mark on the essay!
From: "Courtney" <courtmann@, com.cs.rice.edu>
What is the theme of a martian sends a postcard home?
what is the tone? structure? and rhythms?
thanks
From: Peterbyrne101@
ive just started doing this poem at school and had 20 minutes to proepare for
an oral where my friend and i had to give our views and opinions of what it
all meant, as you can imagine not the easiest of tasks as it was the first
time we saw the poem! We came up with similar ideas to everyone else so
hopefully we should have been alright!
i think its a good poem and i really like it, you have to think about the
true meanings of what its about.
From: "Geoff Lee" <geoffrey.lee107@>
Howdy!
The word "Caxton" to my knowledge is just a general term associated with
dictionaries etc. You find such a name situated on a books spine, so
perhaps "the martian" would have noticed this when these magnificent
birds, as he so describes it, were in flight (being perhaps the only
visible section of the book).
Just a thought...
Best of luck!!
alex
:)
From: "Rose Weavers" <Rose.Weavers@>
hi, just thought i would tell you that a caxton was Raines way of
describing a book - a mechanical bird with many wings..... they dont fly
but sometimes perch on the hand (when you hold a book out by its spine
it looks slightly like a bird!
From: 034159781@ Mon Oct 20 07:57:03 2003
this poem is interesting because it requires the use of a brain.
From: "Grahame & Janis French" <jgfrench@>
I studied this poem today at school. I am in year seven and we had a lot of
fun figuring out all the little riddles carefully woven in to the poem.We
found the Caxtons the hardest to work out, we had all sorts of suggestions
including windmills, fans, peacocks and even onions!!!!!!
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From: "Jess Davies" <jhd88@>
<html><div style='background-color:'><DIV class=RTE>I appreciate the fact that the poem attempts to see the world from a fresh perspective, but I found it irritating. I'm studying it in school along with my other GCSE texts - some of which are much more complex and therefore fun to unpick (Ted Hughes' Roe Deer, for example). By comparison this one does not fare so well! Although the similes are clever, it didn't do anything for me! </DIV></div><br clear=all><hr>Have more fun with your phone - download ringtones, logos, screensavers, games & more. <a href="http://g.msn.com/8HMAENUK/2737??PS=">Click here to begin!</a> </html>
From: "gilderdale" <ramsay@>
We really liked the image of the mist as a sky machine which stops on the
ground when it is tired.
Roberta, Cristina, Nunzia
From: "gilderdale" <ramsay@>
We want to meet criag Raine only to ask him what the true meaning of the
poem is, because in our opion, it is very difficult to understand for
non-academic people.
Concetta, Grazia, Luana, Valentina
From: "gilderdale" <ramsay@>
'No one is exempt, and everyone's pain has a different smell'. Maybe the
martian's point of view isn't too different from ours.... can you see life
clearly? Do you really know the way that you have to walk? How we are
foreigners in this world, strangers to ourselves.
It's not a good time for us if a martian teaches us the respect and
acceptance of diversity!! It's a good poem full of interesting terms
Gaia, Marianna, Marianna
From: Sgillies810@
I have never read such crap in all my life.
Was this man drunk or stoned when he thought tis up ?
From: "Sarah Coffey" <chickensneverblink@>
<html><div style='background-color:'><DIV>
<DIV><BR><BR>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Everyone here seems to think that "Model T" is a car but i dont! i think that it is a television! its kind of obvious that it is and i am 15! here are my reasons!:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>"Model T is a room with a lock inside"- when you watch the TV there are usually people on it and it seems that it is a room where they are in but cant get out and you cant get in.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>"A key is turned to free the world"- this is reffering to old fashioned televisions where to turn on a television you had to turn it on by a switch on the front. Then it would turn on so it would seem that it is a key that unlocks the world of television. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>"For movement so quick there is a film to watch for anything missed" This is reffering to a Video recorder that is attached to a television, you record things on the film inside the tape and you can watch it later so that you dont miss anything!!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>That is my view on what "MOdel T" is and i think that it is accurate, BUT you all think it is a car so can you please tell me why? i would like to find different views on why!</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Sarah xxxx</FONT></DIV></DIV></DIV></div><br clear=all><hr>Count the days to Christmas with the <a href="http://g.msn.com/8HMBENUK/2734??PS=47575" target="_top">MSN Christmas Countdown Calendar!</a> </html>