Wright: Poetry and Train Journey

Wright offers many effective and powerful qualities that are evident throughout her poetry. She expresses her deep connection with her country through the mastery of technique and through rich and vital imagery. ‘Flame- Tree in a Quarry’ (henceforth ‘Flame-Tree’) and ‘Train Journey’ are just two of Wright’s many poems that she has written that include these qualities. In these poems, Wright expresses her passion for the country she loves so much and her frustration and sympathy for her country as it is constantly being destroyed.
‘Flame-Tree’ and ‘Train Journey’ share many similar techniques. “From the broken bone of the hill”, this opening line from ‘Flame-Tree’ is a great example of the way Wright exposes the suffering of nature and how man is destroying it. The aggressive stutter of the alliterated ‘b’ sets the mood of this poem and emphasises Wright’s deep concern for nature’s suffering. These techniques are repeated in ‘Train Journey’, “your delicate dry breasts”. The use of alliteration and personification of the hills being describes as “dry” suggests that the hills have no nutrients left in them to provide life for the soil. These techniques highlight her true love for nature and her country.
Rich and vital images are successfully written through ‘Flame-Tree’ and ‘Train Journey’. Wright paints her message in her poems through powerful descriptions, “under the barren height a slender dance…” This line from ‘Train Journey’ is an example of this strong image of the tree’s branches “dancing” in the wind. However, “slender” has a double meaning. Wright exposes the tree’s chances of survival in this landscape as “slender” if their desire to live is not urgent enough. In ‘Flame-Tree’ Wright highlights the destruction of the hills. “Like a wrecked skull, leaps out this bush of blood.” Wright uses this simile to describe the hill to have no flesh (soil/grass) from having the flame-trees ripped from it. This link between ‘Flame-Tree’ and ‘Train Journey’ effectively