Childhood and Its Requirements : "Plenty" as an Emotional Poem Nemo Ali 11th Grade

‘Plenty’ addresses the contrast between materialistic wants and emotional needs – a distinction very vividly presented when childhood and adulthood are thrown in the balance. Through careful diction, a measured sprinkling of punctuation and other literary devices, Dixon presents this argument in a very thought-provoking, yet sentimental way in her poem.

Dixon’s presentation of her family in the first stanza does not come without its share of literary devices. Although the poem does not have an external rhyme, an internal rhyme maintains the integrity of the poem, and adds rhythm to it. Dixon uses this literary device to connect the most unconnected of ideas; for example, the second line says; ‘all running riot to my mother’s quiet despair’. Here, the rhyme between ‘riot’ and ‘quiet’ brings together two contrasting ideas – the idea of chaos and order – but, the reader is struck with the realization that this is exactly what makes an average household – a plethora of contrasts, a perpetual see-saw between expectations and disappointments, between wants and needs. The imagery of the bath-tub – it is in awful state – is parallel to the idea of the family itself, as this image becomes central to the poet’s memory of her family. The...