Siren Song

Atwood, in her poem "Siren Song," establishes both the speaker and the audience as well as comments on why the siren song works and the sirens themselves. She does this through her use of diction and tone, as well as the actual content of the poem.
One of the first things that Atwood does is she establishes who is speaking, as well as who the audience is. She does this through both the title and content of the poem, identifying that she is talking about sirens, then identifying that the speaker herself is one of the sirens in the passage

"I don't enjoy it here
squatting on this island
looking picturesque and mythical
with these two feathery maniacs."

As Atwood describes the speaker as squatting on the island with to feathery maniacs, the reader is fairly safe to assume that the speaker is a siren as well. Doing this, it is possible to say who she is talking to, or singing to. Simply knowing the facts about sirens, that they sing to sailors and travelers, we can then assume that these sailors and travelers are the intended audience.
In identifying the speaker and audience, it is possible to make the connection that this poem is actually a song - the same song that the sirens sing to lure men to their deaths. Looking at the poem in this sense, it is more possible to see why sailors and men are lured to their death. One of the main qualities of the poem that gives insight to both the sirens and why men are lured are the various changing tones. The poem starts off as a warning, saying what will happen to those who hear the sirens' song, and gives off a dangerous, warning tone through its strong diction such as "irresistable" and "forces." The tone of the piece then takes a drastic turn, and it conveys a "damsel in distress" message. The speaker talks about how horrible her life is and how she wants to escape and how "only you" can help. This both boasts the listener's ego, and creates the idea for them to become the knight in shining armor, causing them to do just what the speaker said they would do in the first two stanzas. Finally, the last stanza takes on a tone which really gives insight to how the siren feels about what she does. She says

"at last. Alas
it is a boring song
but it works every time."

The siren shows a sort of accomplishment at what she just did, as well as a twisted pleasure that even though she had warned these sailors in the begining, she was still able to make them drown.

"Follower"

Seamus Heaney, in his poem "Follower," is able to depict the relationship between a father and child, and how each is perceived as time goes on, through his use of diction and imagery. This poem deals with two time periods; five out of the six stanzas talk about when the speaker was a child, and the last talks about when the speaker is grown up. Overall, this poem is about the speaker's father, and in these first five stanzas, Heaney conveys a sense of wonder and awe that come from the speaker as a child. He believed his father to be perfect, flawless. He was "an expert" and could "map the furrow exactly." His father could make no mistakes, and was not only strong but was even a greater man for being able to put up with the speaker as a child, constantly tripping and stumbling behind him, constantly talking. As a child, the speaker looked to his father in a superhero sense, that he was not a real man, but a wonder set to always be as he was. This perception changes however, as the speaker grows up. The speaker's view of his father as a child is broken, and a sense of reality and the switching of roles is seen in the last stanza. The speaker has taken his fathers place, and the father, who used to be untouchable, has been reduced to a child, a nuisance. The relationship between the two is there, however earlier in the poem, the where the father allowed the speaker to follow him, the readers were lead to believe that it was not from annoyance, but from love, or at least indifference. Now in the last stanza, the speaker's annoyance at his father is clear, however we find that he may allow his father to keep following more out of a sense of duty, or repayment than actual want.

Midterm Break

At first glance of "Mid-Term Break," it seems as if the speaker is very indifferent and emotionless over the death of his younger brother, however, after looking deeper into the poem, it becomes apparent that Seamus Heaney uses time and age to express the speaker's feelings of grief.
First, Heaney uses time to express both the speaker's impatience and his feelings of fear and regret. The first stanza is...

"I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home."

This stanza gives a few examples of time expressing the impatience felt by the speaker. First, he says that he "sat all morning....counting bells..." This phrase can be counted as either boredom, in a regular setting, however in the context of the poem, it shows how the speaker is waiting to go home - the morning seems to strech out longer, as his impatience causes time to slow. Just as when one counts sheep as they wait to go to sleep, the speaker counting bells can be seen as his way to pass the time, and makes the time seem much longer. The second way Heaney uses time to express impatience is with his use of "two o'clock" and later in the poem, "ten o'clock." These two times are very important, and are the key times when the wait which the speaker experiences ends. At two o'clock, he was able to go home. At ten o'clock, the abulance arrives with his brother's body. By using specific times, Heaney really expresses that the whole day is centered around those two events, and that the time inbetween is just a waiting game.
Heaney also uses time to show the speaker's feelings of fear and regret. Even though the corpse had arrived at 10 o'clock that night, the speaker waited until the next morning to go up into the room to see his brother. This wait can be interpretted that the speaker could not go up to see his brother the night before, it was too painful, and it would destroy the denial that he was feeling over his brother's death (stages of grief). Heaney then uses the speaker saying that he "saw him for the first time in six weeks" to express a feeling of regret and guilt, as the speaker realizes that squandered that time that he could have spent with his brother.
Finally, Heaney uses age to show the overwhelming feelings of sadness felt by the speaker. The fourth stanza shows a contradiction between the age of the actual speaker-

"And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand"

As seen, he is said to be the eldest and is away at school, so it is assumed that he is an adult, or young adult. However, it is shown in the line following that the speaker is holding his mother's hand. This reduces the speaker back into the role of a small child, taking comfort in his mother. There is also the use of "old men" and the "baby." This could result in a number of different interpretations. Heaney could be hitting upon how a full life is the progression from a baby to an old man, and it furthurs the tragedy of the young boy's death that he was not able to experience that. It could also be that all the "old men" were not all old men at all, however to the speaker's reduced age, or in comparison to the boy's short life, all other ages simply seem old.