About poem lockdown

The poem lock down is a pictorial poem written by  symon Armitage.  It is creative response to covid 19.

 

The poem has two dream sequence  which speaker has having.  First dream sequence is about 1965_66 plague. Which is in  the village of  northern side in London  the name of village is black beth.  In this village because  of plague  people were dying  on the road.  This poem is deadly remembrance of plague 

Second dream sequence was exotic dream the dreamer travels back  in the time of kalidas 'meghdutam' a cloud messenger.

 

Here  symon Armitage put to diffrant images one from east another from west  he tries to put in lockdown.

Poem begin with this line

And I couldn't  escape the walking  dream

Of infected,

In the wrap and weft of soggy cloth by tailors  hearth

 

Then couldn't  unseen

The boundary stone

 This boundary stone represent the quartine  line because of plague no one moved to one to another village so stone symbiote quartine line.  

In the  next stanza poet talks about if people want to exchange something  they put coin.

In the next stanza poet talks about two lovers as the plague pandemic goes on those time the lovers  was not able to meet each other so they decide not to meet.here symon Armitage  recalls theory of star cross  lovers which we almost forgotten.as  poem goes on entire family  affected  by plague  love story got tragic end. Even today  in the church there is glass painting  of these two lovers.

In the next stanza symon Armitage  use kalidas technique he put  streams like necklace,  dancing cranes fan tailed peacock  by the use of this elements  the poem looks more beautiful.

This poem is remind us the poem of rudeyard Kipling East or west and the poem of rabindranath tagore.