Mark O’Connor Imagery
Poet and Environmentalist, Mark O’Connor, expresses his admiration for the cyclical and resilient aspects of which nature is comprised. The persistence of nature depicts the ideas that nature is just as, if not more, dominant as man. His poems Turtles Hatching and To Kill An Olive explore these themes and elucidate O’Connor’s compelling perspective of nature. These two poems hold distinctively visual images that enable the reader to envisage the scene presented.
Turtles Hatching’s poetic recount encapsulates the trials and tribulations of the turtles. O’Connor describes the turtles as “high revving toys”, ready for their chance at life. He elucidates the persistence of the turtles by using images describing how determined these turtles were at reaching their safe haven: “Scrambling in sand, scrabbling in slime, or sculling deluded through sand-pools to beaches of death”. This alliteration of the visual images highlights the desperation of the turtles on their fight for survival.
O’Connor has created a distinctive image to aid readers in creating an idea of just how determined and persistent, not only the turtles were, but also just how determined the crabs were at preventing the turtles from reaching their goal. “Queued up crabs” gives readers an image of an army of crabs; so many as they wait for the turtles to come. Not only was natures tenacity evident in Turtles Hatching, O’Connor has also brought this theme to the readers attention in To Kill An Olive. O’Connor has started out To Kill An Olive, diving straight into the resilience and persistence of olives trees.
He has accumulated the many things that are incompetent of killing an olive tree elucidating just how determined they are at overpowering man. “Hack one down, grub out a ton of main root for furl, and next spring every side-root sends up shoots”. O’Connor has described visually these connotations of just how in destructive these trees are, despite are the treatment it is being subject to. O’Connor has made reference to the prolonged period of time these olive trees has been persistent in overcoming mans many obstacles. “
Burnt-out ribs of siege machines” not only highlights how long these olive trees have been standing for, but also how the tree has overcome the old-timed machines and gone and lived another age. The distinctively visual images used here can encapsulate this theme and gives readers a deeper understanding of the tenacity these olive trees are willing to relinquish. O’Connor is fascinated by just how much humans underestimate nature. The smallest creatures can overcome any adversity and the dullest of trees can overpower any man. Nature, if it wants to, can be just as powerful as man. In Turtles Hatching, Mark O’Connor has done just this.
