“Antarctic” is a poem by Amber Zhao, age 10. The poem begins with a letter, written to the speaker from an unnamed “you”—this you is the addressee of the entire poem. The “you” is in Antarctica, and they report that they have not seen penguins yet. The speaker imagines the letter writer there, and talks about their own memories of visiting Antarctica. The poem is highly lyrical.
How does this poet play with poetic forms?
“Antarctica” is a great example of a powerful use of long lines. In a poem, line length can tell us a lot about the overall tone. In a poem with shorter lines, the language feels choppier but also moves more quickly. A poem with longer lines can sometimes feel more narrative. We often read a long-lined poem much more slowly because there is less interruption through enjambment. Here, the lines are quite long. The result is a poem that feels as vast as the antarctic landscape it describes.
that icy wilderness, with its harsh arc of grandiose majesty,
luminous glaciers otherworldly in the setting sun? The Earth’s
veins will be hidden deep beneath the icicle-crusted ground
The words stretch out, reminding us a bit of the frozen wilderness that they describe.
The poem is full of outstanding images and sounds that collide to form rich, vivid descriptions.
those waterfalls of ice, pluming into the distant rays
of an underwater moon. Stinging chandeliers, jellyfish,
pulsed deadly, deadly under a human touch, yet beguiling,
a universal gravity drawing the fingers to the stingers.
Translucent lives floated and flowered in a primal ripple-ring of wild nerves
The comparison of jellyfish to “stinging chandeliers” may change the way I see jellyfish and chandeliers forever! It’s such an apt comparison, but also such an unusual one—it is a very memorable image. There are many lovely “u” sounds throughout these five lines: “pluming,” “underwater,” “pulsed,” “under,” “touch,” “beguiling,” “universal,” “translucent.” In poetry, repeating a vowel sound close to another vowel sound is called “assonance.” The poet uses assonance to great effect throughout the poem. There’s a similar term for repeating consonants, by the way: “consonance.” Alliteration, where two words start with the same consonant sound—like “ripple-ring”—is a form of consonance. Matching up sounds is pleasing to the ear and helps a poem that is already full of imaginative images also be filled with music.
Discussion questions:
- Do you notice other examples of assonance or consonance in the poem?
- In the poem, the speaker writes, “Now you are on another expedition, and we move / on different axes.” How does the speaker contrast images of Antarctica to their own surroundings? What do we learn about the speaker through these descriptions?
Antarctic
“The sea’s cold,” is all you write from Antarctica, “and we haven’t
seen any penguins yet. Hope we do.” How to analyze
that icy wilderness, with its harsh arc of grandiose majesty,
luminous glaciers otherworldly in the setting sun? The Earth’s
veins will be hidden deep beneath the icicle-crusted ground,
my friend, and the surreal wonders of stepping onto land
after many days at sea, a sensation to conquer. I remember
those waterfalls of ice, pluming into the distant rays
of an underwater moon. Stinging chandeliers, jellyfish,
pulsed deadly, deadly under a human touch, yet beguiling,
a universal gravity drawing the fingers to the stingers.
Translucent lives floated and flowered in a primal ripple-ring of wild nerves,
and plastic floating billowed out like hollow silk. The drift
of marine snow impacts our small universe of steel pens,
the kettle’s familiar whistle and scissors left unpacked
from their case. We journeyed down the wild underwater cavern,
that labyrinth of darkness, a metallic lake, the Southern Ocean,
reflecting and dissolving ourselves as we really were. As if the pulsing of the
boat was gone, and we were no longer tethered to
that rope on which hung life . . . and death.
It’s been a thousand years, feels like it, since I descended
the staircase of ice and snow for the first time.
How, then, back from our trip, has life shrunk to this bare minimum? I gnaw
on my pencils; suddenly the tree in someone else’s garden
flushes red, blood on branches acidly looking up to the sky,
and shifting forms in textures evolve. We walked together in Antarctica,
strolling from the point where universe meets universe
and back, breezes whipping endlessly,
our twin fingerprints glowing transparently
on Antarctic, sacred land. Now you are on another expedition, and we move
on different axes; you acknowledge the penguins
but do not study their very form, shape, soul, like me, tiny wriggling
bulbs of black and white, alighting into the ocean.
At night the color palettes would spring and turn above.
Your final visitation was a quick one, that ghostly gaze
of departure to Antarctica already spreading its languorous translation
all over your pale silken face—imagining zodiacs,
moving images in a world magnified by its sheer, brutal barrenness,
and an escape to endless stars wheeling, even
blizzards pouring down from the polar axis’s hemisphere.
Brisbane, Australia
