The poems I chose deals with these two notions and the link between them, and will be analysed in this essay based on language, imagery, meaning and effect. “A Consumer’s Report” by Peter Porter revolves around life, while “For Heidi With Blue Hair” by Fleur Adcock is about the method of grieving a loved one’s death that a girl employs.
Both poems use imagery but in different ways. “For Heidi With Blue Hair” uses imagery in the sense of describing the sights and images. This is shown in many areas but one of the most obvious ones is the beginning of the poem where the poet writes “When you dyed your hair blue (or, at least, ultramarine for the clipped sides, with a crest of jet-black spikes on top)”. Another example lies in the last stanza, “Next day your black friend had hers done in grey, white and flaxen yellow”.
The poet here is describing how the hair looks, focusing especially on the colours and the meanings behind them. The colour blue is seen as a colour of trust and peace, but could also be taken in a more negative way where it’s a colour of melancholy and depression. The …show more content…
The speaker here is talking about a girl, Heidi, who painted her hair ultramarine blue and got in trouble for that at her school because it was not done in the school coloration. The rationale behind her colouring her hair lies in the fact that her mother passed on and that was her way of handling the death. That indicates that the wider meaning behind “For Heidi With Blue Hair” is that individuals grieve in divergent ways. Some people weep all the time, some don’t even shed a tear, others use their appearance to communicate and express their sentiments (such as the case with Heidi), while others pretend to be well and perfectly