Poetry Blog 13

So I'm a little confused because in the grade book it says I already did a 13th poetry blog, but I didn't see that I had one. So I'm titling this 13, but it would be great if this could count as 14! :)

The poem I presented, "The Explosion," by Philip Larkin was hard to decode at first. I had to look up the words "pithead," "slagheap," and "pitboots." After I did this, the image Larkin was trying to create was much more clear. A "pithead" is the entrance to a mine, a "slagheap" is a pile of mining waste, and "pitboots" are mining boots, which made sense after having looked up the first two words. The first and second stanzas are pretty self explanatory: they describe an explosion in a mine. However, the poem's mood changes in the third stanza. At this point, the poem seems oddly happy with it's talk of chasing rabbits and finding a nest of lark's eggs--both carefree activities that you wouldn't suspect people who have just experienced an explosion in a mine to do. However, these ideas relate back into the end of the poem. The fourth stanza is even more peculiar, as it provides personalization to the people exiting the mine, and there is an allusion to the gates of heaven. This is the first sign to the reader that the men exiting the mine could be dead, and on their way to heaven. The last five stanzas are the same story, only from more of a third person perspective. The fifth stanza starts back at the beginning of the story, talking of the "tremor" and how the "sun,/ Scarfed as in a heat-daze, dimmed." The next stanza is italicized, probably to note that someone other than the narrator is speaking, as in a funeral sermon, but it is unspecified. The image of a church service for those who perished in the explosion can be inferred further in the third to last stanza, but this stanza also contains metaphor comparing the sermon to the plain words inscribed in the chapel, describing what a standard formality the service is. But the next few lines explain that the service is plain and standard, but that it is special to the wives of the explosion victims because they can almost see their loved ones, backlit by the sun like angels. The last line of the poem that stands alone was confusing to me at first, but I think it relates back to the line about the "lark's eggs." Since Easter was just last weekend, it got me thinking that maybe the eggs symbolized new life for the victims. It explains that they are not gone completely, they have just moved on to the next life, and so the wives can still see them, "Gold as on a coin... walking/ Somehow from the sun towards them."