Vultures and Night of the scorpion



Vultures and Night of the Scorpion

In 'Vultures', the use of description is both vivid and surprising. The descriptions often lead the reader to expect a certain conclusion or tone and then the poets' use of description changes and this changes the reader's anticipation of how the poems might develop; this is what makes the poems thought-provoking and surprising.

Similarly, the title of the poem 'Vultures' leads the reader to make assumptions about what the poem is about. In fact, the poem is not really about vultures at all. The vultures are a symbol for an idea that the poet wants to explore: the idea that love can be found in unexpected places. The description of the vultures is harsh and the imagery is of death and violence. The opening alliteration helps set a tone that sounds negative - the dawn is described as 'despondent' and drizzly. The hard sound of the D rings through these opening lines - the vultures sit on a 'broken bone of a dead tree'. Sunrise is 'sunbreak' and it's grey. There is no anticipation that this will be a happy or sunny poem and yet, unexpectedly, the vulture inclines his 'bashed in head' to nestle affectionately against his mate. This one description of love is immediately followed by more images of the repulsive and macabre as the eating habits of the birds are described vividly and stomach turningly.

The mud hut is alive with activity and pressure to do something. In contrast, the charnel house of the second stanza in 'Vultures' is surprisingly calm. Again a surprising image because even the word 'charnel' conjures up images of death, and, in the context of this poem, violence. Even more surprising is the personification of love in the charnel house tidying up. This stanza begins with one word - 'strange'. Set alone on a line, it causes the reader to pause and evaluate. It is strange, not that love exists in a charnel house - death does not mean that we stop loving people - but that her behaviour is so ordinary; she tidies up, chooses a corner and goes to sleep, 'her face turned to the wall!' Why? There are implications here that after death, we tidy up our memories of people, perhaps make them 'cleaner', but in the end, the idea of death is a hard thing to face so we try to avoid it and turn away from it. So, ultimately, perhaps this idea is not 'strange' at all.

The title 'Night of the Scorpion' sounds like the sort of name a horror film might be given. This is misleading because this poem is not like a horror film at all. Instead of the scorpion being the enemy, the poet 's description of the scorpion's circumstances leads us to feel sympathy for it. He has been 'driven' into the hut by 'ten hours of steady rain'. The use of the word 'driven' suggests that this is a last resort for the ...