Cat-rap
The poem "Cat-Rap’’ has a fixed form, having a rhyme which gives it a very formal sense. The message transmitted thought he poem is however a very lighthearted one, the major character in the poem being a cat, sitting around all day and rapping in its head. The act of rapping is described as something continuous and which is in itself a mystery. Rapping is also described as a form of entertainment enjoyed by everyone and thus it becomes a universal manner of entertainment.
The poem ends with a brag usually found in rapping, the cat calling itself ‘’the meanest cat-rapper you’’ll ever see’’. The cat also expresses its hope the find the answer to the mystery regarding Rapp in the next life when it will meet the forefathers of rapping.
Like a Beacon
The poem mentioned above is a short which is narrated from the perspective of a first person subjective narrator. The first stanza of the poem presents the narrator away from home, wondering the streets of London and wishing to have something which will make her feel closer to home. In the first stanza, the narrator lists a number of foods she grew up with, foods which remind her of her mother and the quite life she used to have. Those foods are described as being a ‘’beacon’’, helping the narrator fight against the ‘’cold’’ she finds in the different cities she visited. The cold the narrator describes here could be used to make reference to the unfamiliarity she experienced why away from the country she was born and raised in.
For Forest
The poem ‘’For Forest’’ is written in an attempt to convince the reader that our lives will never be the same if the forests we are so accustomed to seeing will disappear from our lives. The forest described here is personified, imagined as a grand person, an old person who existed even before the dawn of civilization. The narrator highlights that the forest is able to keep secrets, to keep them hidden from everyone and everything, thus being completely different from the rest of the people we encounter.
The secrets of the world, of the manner in which this world came to be are also contained by the forest as well. The natural balance we rely on to survive also relies in the existence of the forest and thus, saving them means we are also saving ourselves.
The narrator returns to the initial idea in the beginning of the poem in the last stanza, thus making this poem a circular one. She comes back to the ‘’secrets’’ the forest keeps hidden and insists once more that "we must keep Forest’’.
