The Night Train Poem
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Night Mail A poem by W.H. Auden
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This makes for a very simple poem although not necessarily one which is simple in meaning. It does, however, lend itself for public recitation to an unlettered audience. The poem captures the everyday fear of working people having to return home late on an almost empty train, where the risk of being mugged or even murdered is very high. Does the rhythm of this poem resemble that of the train itself swaying gently along the rails, with the occasional lurching over points? Go through all the points already brought home in the questions above and expand upon them, analysing the poet's imagery, etc.
The green seat was hard -- "resisting" -- and was therefore uncomfortable. The fact that there are so few passengers could provide the opportunity for the poet being mugged or even murdered. The poet repeats the word "few" for emphasis. It is night and is certainly dark outside. The world in which the poet lived was a negative one: he was Black and therefore regarded as inferior. Remaining on the train, however, is dangerous and the poet is desperate to get off.
A smell is something that is tangible whereas a feeling is not. The inside of a railway carriage carries a strong smell: the leather seats, the varnished wood, perhaps the smell of oil and brakes and even the stale smell of people. The word "whispering" is onomatopoeic -- it is the quiet sound of hushed voices whispering in secret. Can you spot anything else? Is there necessarily a point? If one counts the number of syllables used in this poem, one arrives at an interesting result: 79 monosyllabic words, just 10 bi-syllables and only 6 multi-syllables. It is with great sadness that we have to announce that the creator of Knowledge4Africa, Dr T.
Helping people through his website gave him no end of pleasure. If you had contact with him and would like to leave a message, please send us an e-mail here. READ THIS The poet describes his feelings as he travels on a "night train" -- presumably a late-night suburban train which is taking him to his home in segregated Johannesburg. The Board also accused the magazine of sedition.
Have you looked at the questions in the right column? Read the left column and then answer the following questions: "there is no comfort here in this third class coach on this green resisting seat" What is the connection between there being "no comfort here" and the description of the seat being "green resisting"? Try another worksheet? See also: Knowledge 4 Africa. Filming at Crewe station for the train's minute stop took several days, and involved the team setting up their own scaffolding and arc lamps and electrician Frank Brice running power cables onto the track to supply power from their generator. Jackson boarded this train with the film reels for processing at Humphries Laboratories, sleeping on mail bags and arriving at the lab during the night.
With the processed film ready in the morning, Jackson would take a postal train back to Crewe where the team could view the footage at a local cinema before it opened at pm. Having viewed the footage, they would return to the station and set up the equipment to capture the next minute stop. Wright was responsible for the aerial shots of the train from a hired aircraft, while Watt filmed the interior and location shots. They were instructed to sway from side to side to recreate the motion of the moving train which was accomplished by following the movement of a suspended piece of string.
Attempts to film while shaking the camera also failed as it merely produced a wobbly shot. Wright later thought it was "one of the most beautifully organised shots" of the entire film. They adopted the term when the unit had missed a shot. Fowle is credited with capturing several dramatic shots, including the mail bag being dropped off into a trackside net at high speed. To do this, he leaned out of the coach where the metal arm reached outward while his two colleagues held onto his legs, and got the shot just before the arm quickly swung back upon contact.
The crew had even placed their sound van onto a bogie coupled behind a train and travelled up and down a stretch of line for an entire day, but the overall sound drowned it out. Jackson proceeded to push the engine back and forth along the track at the same speed as the train in the picture which produced the sound they needed. During the construction of the sorting coach set, Watt, Jones, and Jackson were assigned an engine to themselves and travelled up and down Beattock Summit in Scotland several times. This included another dangerous shot captured by Jackson, after attempts to take footage of the driver's cab produced film that was too dark. To solve this, Jackson sat atop of the coal pile in the locomotive's tender while holding a reflective sheet made with silver paper that acted as a mirror to make subjects brighter.
As he filmed, the train passed a bridge which knocked the reflector off and narrowly missed his head. Watt still had more footage to capture, however, wishing for a coda that showed an engine being cleaned and serviced at the end of the journey before starting its next one. After viewing a rough assembly of the film, Grierson, Wright, and Cavalcanti agreed that a new ending was needed. Watt expressed his disagreement with the idea at first, but came round to it when it presented the opportunity in shooting additional footage and using previously shot film that was could not be used to complete the sequence. Auden's poem for the sequence, entitled "Night Mail", was written at the film unit's main office in Soho Square.
Many lines from the original version were discarded and became "crumpled fragments in the wastepaper basket", [35] including one that described the Cheviot Hills by the English—Scottish border as "uplands heaped like slaughtered horses" that Wright considered too strong for the landscape that was shot for it. The sequence begins slowly before picking up speed, so that by the penultimate verse, assistant and narrator Stuart Legg speaks at a breathless pace, which involved several pauses in recording so he could catch his breath. The "Huh" sound was located and marked down on the audio tape to show where he was to continue.
Around the time of Auden's arrival at the GPO, Cavalcanti suggested to Grierson that he hire year-old English composer Benjamin Britten to contribute music to the film department, including the musical score for Night Mail. The music was recorded at the Blackheath studio, [40] Jackson claimed Britten had only used five musicians, all of whom were hand picked. After the poem sequence was finalised, the remaining sound recording which included the narrative commentary. Jackson agreed, but disliked the sound of his voice upon playback: "My dulcet tones are immortalised in a few simple statements [ The film premiered on 4 February at the Cambridge Arts Theatre in Cambridge [5] [11] [43] as one of the films presented at the launch screening at the venue.
Night Mail was promoted with a largely successful advertising campaign to aid its release. The GPO commissioned posters, special screenings, and other soft publicity opportunities, taking advantage of the glamorous image and popularity of railway films to promote Night Mail. Unlike other GPO films, which were primarily screened in schools, professional societies, and other small venues, Night Mail was shown in commercial cinemas as an opening for the main feature.
However, poor contracts for short documentary films meant Night Mail failed to make a significant profit despite its high viewership. The set includes 96 minutes of bonus features, including the sequel Night Mail 2. Writing for The Spectator in , Graham Greene gave the film mild praise, describing the "simple visual verses of Mr Auden [as] extraordinarily exciting", while admitting that the film as a whole "isn't a complete success". Greene dismissed the criticism of including Auden's verse from C. Lejeune 's review in The Observer , however he found fault with some of the quality and clarity of some of the scenes.
According to documentary author Betsy McLane, Night Mail makes three primary arguments: First, the postal system is complex and must function under the auspices of a national government in order to thrive. Second, the postal system is a model of modern efficiency, and third, postal employees are industrious, jovial, and professional. Grierson also articulated a desire to reflect "Scottish expression" and unity between England and Scotland with Night Mail. Author A. Fulton points out effective film editing to build suspense on everyday operations, such as the mail bags being caught by the track side nets. The scene is "humanized" with the new starter learning the task and lasts no longer than 90 seconds, yet it comprises 58 shots, averaging under two shots per second.
Fulton compared its construction to that of Battleship Potemkin by Sergei Eisenstein. The film utilises three contrasting techniques to convey its meaning. First, Night Mail portrays the daily activities of the postal staff on a human scale, with colloquial speech and naturalistic vignettes, like sipping beer and sharing inside jokes. This was the approach favoured by Watt, who apprenticed under ethnographic filmmaker Robert Flaherty. Second, Night Mail uses expressionistic techniques like heavy back lighting and the lyric poetry of Auden to convey the grand scale of the postal endeavour.
These techniques were championed by Wright, a lover of experimental European cinema. Finally, the film occasionally employs narration to explain the particular marvels of the mail system. This factual exposition was promoted by Grierson. Night Mail , though edited in a naturalistic style, nevertheless utilises potent lyric symbolism. The film contrasts the national importance of the postal system, embodied by a train journey which literally enables cross-country communication, with the local accents and colloquial behaviour of its staff, demonstrating that a great nation is composed of its humble and essential regions and peoples.
Night Mail further reinforces the strength of national unity by juxtaposing images of cities and countryside, factories and farms. Autoplay Next Video. Read More. Henry Lawson. Thursday, January 1, Download image of this poem. Report this poem. This poem has not been translated into any other language yet. I would like to translate this poem. Helene Walkowsky 26 July Ray Collins 24 February See All Comments. Poems About. Best Poets.
