Poems

“Fork” By Charles Simic
This strange thing must have crept
Right out of hell.
It resembles a birds foot
Worn around the cannibals neck.
As you hold it in your hand,
As you stab with it into a piece of meat,
It is possible to imagine the rest of the bird:
Its head which like your fist
Is large, bald, beakless, and blind.

The Pitchfork By Seamsus Heaney
Of all implements, the pitchfork was the one
That came near to an imagined perfection:
When he tightened his raised hand and aimed with it,
It felt like a javelin, accurate and light.
So whether he played the warrior or the athlete
Or worked in earnest in the chaff and sweat,
He loved its grain of tapering, dark-flecked ash
Grown satiny from its own natural polish.
Riveted steel, turned timber, burnish, grain,
Smoothness, straightness, roundness, length and sheen.
Sweat-cured, sharpened, balanced, tested, fitted.
The springiness, the clip and dart of it.
And then when he thought of probes that reached the farthest,
He would see the shaft of a pitchfork sailing past
Evenly, imperturbably through space,
Its prongs starlit and absolutely soundless
But has learned at last to follow that simple lead
Past its own aim, out to an other side
Where perfection or nearness to it is imagined
Not in the aiming but the opening hand.
Info: Write an essay that discusses how the images in these two poems give these objects qualities that are not inherent in either pitchforks or forks.
You should divide the essay into two parts: part one will discuss one poem and part two the second one. The order in which you discuss the poems in the essay is your choice.