stealing poem essay

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The Portrayal of Disturbed Personas in Hitcher and Stealing

• Categories: Poetry

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Published: May 19, 2020

Words: 985 | Pages: 2 | 5 min read

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Carol Ann Duffy

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Understanding 'Stealing'

Based on Carol Ann Duffy's poem 'Stealing', this resource includes a series of comprehension questions based on:

• understanding the poem
• language analysis
• the speaker.

The poem is based on the themes of isolation, theft, violence and ostracisation from society. The resource would work as a one-off lesson looking at the poem as unseen.

You will need a copy of the poem to use this resource. It is widely available online and not reproduced here due to copyright restrictions.

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Higher English / GCSE Critical Essay on Carol Ann Duffy's 'Stealing' Poem

Subject: English

Age range: 14-16

Resource type: Other

Last updated

24 December 2023

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Higher English / GCSE critical essay on Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Stealing’ poem. Essay task: Choose a poem in which there is an element of ambiguity. Show how the poet’s use of ambiguity enriches your appreciation of the poem as a whole. The essay is around 1500 words.

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20x A-Grade Higher English Literature Poetry Essays Super Bundle: Carol Ann Duffy, Jackie Kay, Moira Andrew, Liz Lochhead, Philip Larkin, Sylvia Plath

18x Higher English A-grade Critical Essays on Carol Ann Duffy's poetry

18x A-grade Critical Essays on Carol Ann Duffy's poetry (at Higher English level) including the poems:<br /> <br /> Anne Hathaway<br /> Education for Leisure<br /> Havisham<br /> Mrs Midas<br /> Originally<br /> Shooting Stars<br /> Stealing<br /> The Way My Mother Speaks<br /> Valentine<br /> War Photographer<br /> <br /> There are also sample responses to 10 mark critical reading exam questions on Duffy's poetry.

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Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing) Summary & Analysis by William Wordsworth

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

The Prelude is a book-length autobiographical poem by William Wordsworth. It focuses on Wordsworth's spiritual development, which is often spurred on in the poem by the surrounding natural environment. In this early passage from The Prelude , the speaker recalls a night when he, as a young boy, steals a boat and rows out into the middle of a lake. Eventually, the boy becomes scared of a huge mountain and rows back to shore. The image of the mountain haunts him from then on, planting the seeds for a more complex relationship with nature.

• Read the full text of “Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)”

The Full Text of “Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)”

1 One summer evening (led by her) I found

2 A little boat tied to a willow tree

3 Within a rocky cove, its usual home.

4 Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in

5 Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth

6 And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice

7 Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on;

8 Leaving behind her still, on either side,

9 Small circles glittering idly in the moon,

10 Until they melted all into one track

11 Of sparkling light. But now, like one who rows,

12 Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point

13 With an unswerving line, I fixed my view

14 Upon the summit of a craggy ridge,

15 The horizon's utmost boundary; far above

16 Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.

17 She was an elfin pinnace; lustily

18 I dipped my oars into the silent lake,

19 And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat

20 Went heaving through the water like a swan;

21 When, from behind that craggy steep till then

22 The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge,

23 As if with voluntary power instinct,

24 Upreared its head. I struck and struck again,

25 And growing still in stature the grim shape

26 Towered up between me and the stars, and still,

27 For so it seemed, with purpose of its own

28 And measured motion like a living thing,

29 Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned,

30 And through the silent water stole my way

31 Back to the covert of the willow tree;

32 There in her mooring-place I left my bark,—

33 And through the meadows homeward went, in grave

34 And serious mood; but after I had seen

35 That spectacle, for many days, my brain

36 Worked with a dim and undetermined sense

37 Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts

38 There hung a darkness, call it solitude

39 Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes

40 Remained, no pleasant images of trees,

41 Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields;

42 But huge and mighty forms, that do not live

43 Like living men, moved slowly through the mind

44 By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.

“Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Summary

“extract from the prelude (boat stealing)” themes.

The Magic of Childhood

• See where this theme is active in the poem.

Nature Vs. Human Understanding

Solitude and Spiritual Insight

Line-by-line explanation & analysis of “extract from the prelude (boat stealing)”.

One summer evening (led by her) I found A little boat tied to a willow tree Within a rocky cove, its usual home.

Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on;

Leaving behind her still, on either side, Small circles glittering idly in the moon, Until they melted all into one track Of sparkling light.

Lines 11-16

But now, like one who rows, Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point With an unswerving line, I fixed my view Upon the summit of a craggy ridge, The horizon's utmost boundary; far above Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.

Lines 17-20

She was an elfin pinnace; lustily I dipped my oars into the silent lake, And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat Went heaving through the water like a swan;

Lines 21-24

When, from behind that craggy steep till then The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge, As if with voluntary power instinct, Upreared its head.

Lines 24-29

I struck and struck again, And growing still in stature the grim shape Towered up between me and the stars, and still, For so it seemed, with purpose of its own And measured motion like a living thing, Strode after me.

Lines 29-34

With trembling oars I turned, And through the silent water stole my way Back to the covert of the willow tree; There in her mooring-place I left my bark,— And through the meadows homeward went, in grave And serious mood;

Lines 34-39

but after I had seen That spectacle, for many days, my brain Worked with a dim and undetermined sense Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts There hung a darkness, call it solitude Or blank desertion.

Lines 39-44

No familiar shapes Remained, no pleasant images of trees, Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields; But huge and mighty forms, that do not live Like living men, moved slowly through the mind By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.

“Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)” Symbols

• See where this symbol appears in the poem.

The Mountain Peak

“extract from the prelude (boat stealing)” poetic devices & figurative language, personification.

• See where this poetic device appears in the poem.

Pathetic Fallacy

“extract from the prelude (boat stealing)” vocabulary.

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Craggy Ridge
• Voluntary power instinct
• Measured motion
• Mooring-place
• Undetermined
• Unknown Modes of Being
• Blank desertion
• See where this vocabulary word appears in the poem.

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Extract from The Prelude (Boat Stealing)”

Rhyme scheme, “extract from the prelude (boat stealing)” speaker, “extract from the prelude (boat stealing)” setting, literary and historical context of “extract from the prelude (boat stealing)”, more “extract from the prelude (boat stealing)” resources, external resources.

The Prelude in Full — The entire 1850 text of The Prelude. The passage in this guide is from Book 1.

The 1799 Version of Boat Stealing — This excerpt from the Poetry Foundation contains the same passage as it was originally written in 1799, before more than 50 years of editing.

The Lakes District — Information about the Lakes District, where Wordsworth grew up and where this passage takes place.

Intimations of Immortality — In this poem, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood," Wordsworth reflects on spiritual intuitions he had as a child, and how growing up has affected those intuitions. Note its resonances with the Boat Stealing passage.

A Biography of Wordsworth — A detailed biography of Wordsworth, along with additional poems, from the Poetry Foundation.

LitCharts on Other Poems by William Wordsworth

A Complaint

A Slumber Did My Spirit Seal

Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802

Expostulation and Reply

It Is a Beauteous Evening, Calm and Free

I Travelled Among Unknown Men

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey

Lines Written in Early Spring

London, 1802

My Heart Leaps Up

Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent’s Narrow Room

Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood

She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways

She was a Phantom of Delight

The Solitary Reaper

The Tables Turned

The World Is Too Much With Us

Three Years She Grew in Sun and Shower

To a Snowdrop

We Are Seven

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By the BOOK

Morgan Parker Says ‘Poetry Is Under Everything’ She Writes

Crafting the arguments in “You Get What You Pay For,” her first essay collection, “felt like pulling apart a long piece of taffy,” says the author of “Magical Negro.”

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What books are on your night stand?

The craft anthology “How We Do It,” edited by the great Jericho Brown, and Shayla Lawson’s astounding “How to Live Free in a Dangerous World.”

Describe your ideal reading experience (when, where, what, how).

Probably on the smoking patio of a wine bar at happy hour on a sunny day, with a pencil in my hand and Dorothy Ashby or Ambrose Akinmusire playing through noise-canceling headphones. Or just a quiet morning on my couch with coffee, so engrossed I forget to flip the record.

What’s the last book you read that made you laugh?

“Erasure,” by Percival Everett . I picked up a used copy at Shakespeare & Company recently — after seeing Cord Jefferson’s brilliant adaptation , “American Fiction” — and even on a reread, it made me laugh out loud from the first page.

The last book that made you cry?

Weird or obnoxious if I say my own? Before that, it was probably Y.A.

Do you count any books as guilty pleasures?

That category’s filled to the brim and beyond by reality TV.

How do you organize your books?

Loosely or not at all. This is much to the horror of my Virgo pals, and while I used to take pride in navigating my shelves on familiarity alone, it’s something I’ve vowed to work on. Still, I doubt I’ll ever be an alphabetical type, and clearly I find genre segregation constricting. I do group things thematically, or even interpersonally — music biographies, Black Panthers, Harlem Renaissance; Jessica Hopper is next to John Giorno, and Chase Berggrun’s “R E D” is next to “Dracula”; Julie Buntin’s “Marlena” is beside her husband Gabe Habash’s “Stephen Florida”; Alison C. Rollins is next to her partner Nate Marshall is next to his bestie José Olivarez. At some point Hilton Als’s “White Girls” ended up next to “Male Fantasies,” and I don’t think I’ll ever separate them.

Which genres do you avoid?

There’s an essay in “You Get What You Pay For” where I mention reading a self-help book (as recommended by my now-former psychiatrist). I’d never read one before and have not since.

How does your poetry relate to your essay writing?

The truth is that poetry is under everything. It’s the lyric and sensory backbone. It’s what drives the sound, pace and imagery. (Everyone knows the best prose writers write and read poetry.) But while a poem strives for precision of language, the essay strives for precision of thought, even argument. In a poem, you can build (or approximate) an argument by plopping two images next to each other. It persuades by pointing. Writing these essays felt like pulling apart a long piece of taffy — I found myself reiterating a lot of what I’ve already expressed in poems, so it almost became a project of stretching out each poetic line, breaking down each concept to its root. The process is about asking, pondering, searching — and letting language take part in the answering.

You have a knack for terrific book titles. How did you name your new collection?

Thank you! I love a good title, but I also acknowledge the high bar I have set for myself. With this one, I struggled a bit, I think because it took me a while to understand the book myself, let alone how to introduce it to the world. The essays encompass a lot of seemingly disparate themes and even tonal registers, so framing the overall collection was daunting. I’d been tossing around a couple of options, including “Cheaper Than Therapy,” which appears as an essay title, when Jay-Z made the choice for me. I was in Italy at a residency, grieving the recent loss of my aunt and watching the “Big Pimpin’” video over and over as I worked on an essay about it for the book. I’d left my heavily tabbed copy of “Decoded” at home in Los Angeles, but was scrolling a PDF for details about the video shoot when I came across the line: “If the price is life, then you better get what you paid for.”

You describe yourself as foolish for believing “words could be the pathway to empathy and writing an active resistance against hate.” Might publishing this book change your mind?

Honestly? It’s my only hope.

What’s the last book you recommended to a member of your family?

“Heavy,” by Kiese Laymon, to my mom; Blair LM Kelley’s “ Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class,” to my dad; and “A Is for Activist,” to my 8-month-old cousin.

What do you plan to read next?

Phillip B. Williams’s “Ours” was just published, and I’ve been excited about it for literally years. Vinson Cunningham’s “Great Expectations” came out the same day as my book, so I plan to make that my tour read.

You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?

June Jordan, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin — but I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t get just as much fun and fulfillment from a night with Angel Nafis, Danez Smith and Saeed Jones.

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What to know about the crisis of violence, politics and hunger engulfing Haiti

A long-simmering crisis over Haiti’s ability to govern itself, particularly after a series of natural disasters and an increasingly dire humanitarian emergency, has come to a head in the Caribbean nation, as its de facto president remains stranded in Puerto Rico and its people starve and live in fear of rampant violence. 

The chaos engulfing the country has been bubbling for more than a year, only for it to spill over on the global stage on Monday night, as Haiti’s unpopular prime minister, Ariel Henry, agreed to resign once a transitional government is brokered by other Caribbean nations and parties, including the U.S.

But the very idea of a transitional government brokered not by Haitians but by outsiders is one of the main reasons Haiti, a nation of 11 million, is on the brink, according to humanitarian workers and residents who have called for Haitian-led solutions. 

“What we’re seeing in Haiti has been building since the 2010 earthquake,” said Greg Beckett, an associate professor of anthropology at Western University in Canada. 

What is happening in Haiti and why?

In the power vacuum that followed the assassination of democratically elected President Jovenel Moïse in 2021, Henry, who was prime minister under Moïse, assumed power, with the support of several nations, including the U.S. 

When Haiti failed to hold elections multiple times — Henry said it was due to logistical problems or violence — protests rang out against him. By the time Henry announced last year that elections would be postponed again, to 2025, armed groups that were already active in Port-au-Prince, the capital, dialed up the violence.

Even before Moïse’s assassination, these militias and armed groups existed alongside politicians who used them to do their bidding, including everything from intimidating the opposition to collecting votes . With the dwindling of the country’s elected officials, though, many of these rebel forces have engaged in excessively violent acts, and have taken control of at least 80% of the capital, according to a United Nations estimate. 

Those groups, which include paramilitary and former police officers who pose as community leaders, have been responsible for the increase in killings, kidnappings and rapes since Moïse’s death, according to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program at Uppsala University in Sweden. According to a report from the U.N . released in January, more than 8,400 people were killed, injured or kidnapped in 2023, an increase of 122% increase from 2022.

“January and February have been the most violent months in the recent crisis, with thousands of people killed, or injured, or raped,” Beckett said.

Armed groups who had been calling for Henry’s resignation have already attacked airports, police stations, sea ports, the Central Bank and the country’s national soccer stadium. The situation reached critical mass earlier this month when the country’s two main prisons were raided , leading to the escape of about 4,000 prisoners. The beleaguered government called a 72-hour state of emergency, including a night-time curfew — but its authority had evaporated by then.

Aside from human-made catastrophes, Haiti still has not fully recovered from the devastating earthquake in 2010 that killed about 220,000 people and left 1.5 million homeless, many of them living in poorly built and exposed housing. More earthquakes, hurricanes and floods have followed, exacerbating efforts to rebuild infrastructure and a sense of national unity.

Since the earthquake, “there have been groups in Haiti trying to control that reconstruction process and the funding, the billions of dollars coming into the country to rebuild it,” said Beckett, who specializes in the Caribbean, particularly Haiti. 

Beckett said that control initially came from politicians and subsequently from armed groups supported by those politicians. Political “parties that controlled the government used the government for corruption to steal that money. We’re seeing the fallout from that.”

Many armed groups have formed in recent years claiming to be community groups carrying out essential work in underprivileged neighborhoods, but they have instead been accused of violence, even murder . One of the two main groups, G-9, is led by a former elite police officer, Jimmy Chérizier — also known as “Barbecue” — who has become the public face of the unrest and claimed credit for various attacks on public institutions. He has openly called for Henry to step down and called his campaign an “armed revolution.”

But caught in the crossfire are the residents of Haiti. In just one week, 15,000 people have been displaced from Port-au-Prince, according to a U.N. estimate. But people have been trying to flee the capital for well over a year, with one woman telling NBC News that she is currently hiding in a church with her three children and another family with eight children. The U.N. said about 160,000 people have left Port-au-Prince because of the swell of violence in the last several months. 

Deep poverty and famine are also a serious danger. Gangs have cut off access to the country’s largest port, Autorité Portuaire Nationale, and food could soon become scarce.

Haiti's uncertain future

A new transitional government may dismay the Haitians and their supporters who call for Haitian-led solutions to the crisis. 

But the creation of such a government would come after years of democratic disruption and the crumbling of Haiti’s political leadership. The country hasn’t held an election in eight years. 

Haitian advocates and scholars like Jemima Pierre, a professor at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, say foreign intervention, including from the U.S., is partially to blame for Haiti’s turmoil. The U.S. has routinely sent thousands of troops to Haiti , intervened in its government and supported unpopular leaders like Henry.

“What you have over the last 20 years is the consistent dismantling of the Haitian state,” Pierre said. “What intervention means for Haiti, what it has always meant, is death and destruction.”

In fact, the country’s situation was so dire that Henry was forced to travel abroad in the hope of securing a U.N. peacekeeping deal. He went to Kenya, which agreed to send 1,000 troops to coordinate an East African and U.N.-backed alliance to help restore order in Haiti, but the plan is now on hold . Kenya agreed last October to send a U.N.-sanctioned security force to Haiti, but Kenya’s courts decided it was unconstitutional. The result has been Haiti fending for itself. 

“A force like Kenya, they don’t speak Kreyòl, they don’t speak French,” Pierre said. “The Kenyan police are known for human rights abuses . So what does it tell us as Haitians that the only thing that you see that we deserve are not schools, not reparations for the cholera the U.N. brought , but more military with the mandate to use all kinds of force on our population? That is unacceptable.”  

Henry was forced to announce his planned resignation from Puerto Rico, as threats of violence — and armed groups taking over the airports — have prevented him from returning to his country.  

Now that Henry is to stand down, it is far from clear what the armed groups will do or demand next, aside from the right to govern. 

“It’s the Haitian people who know what they’re going through. It’s the Haitian people who are going to take destiny into their own hands. Haitian people will choose who will govern them,” Chérizier said recently, according to The Associated Press .

Haitians and their supporters have put forth their own solutions over the years, holding that foreign intervention routinely ignores the voices and desires of Haitians. 

In 2021, both Haitian and non-Haitian church leaders, women’s rights groups, lawyers, humanitarian workers, the Voodoo Sector and more created the Commission to Search for a Haitian Solution to the Crisis . The commission has proposed the “ Montana Accord ,” outlining a two-year interim government with oversight committees tasked with restoring order, eradicating corruption and establishing fair elections. 

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CORRECTION (March 15, 2024, 9:58 a.m. ET): An earlier version of this article misstated which university Jemima Pierre is affiliated with. She is a professor at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, not the University of California, Los Angeles, (or Columbia University, as an earlier correction misstated).

Patrick Smith is a London-based editor and reporter for NBC News Digital.

Char Adams is a reporter for NBC BLK who writes about race.

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Amanda Gorman Is Using Poetry to Create Social Change

After stealing the show at President Biden’s 2021 inauguration, the now 26-year-old is forging an identity beyond her splashy debut.

Amanda Gorman rocketed into public consciousness, stealing the show with a performance of her poem “The Hill We Climb” at President Biden’s 2021 inauguration, in head-to-toe Prada and jewelry gifted by Oprah, no less. But she doesn’t want that poem to be all she’s known for. As amazing as the experience was, the now 26-year-old can’t fathom having peaked at 21. “That is not the plan,” she says with a laugh. In the years since, as she’s become the first poet to ever perform at the Super Bowl and published four books, she’s worked to forge an identity beyond her splashy debut. “While I’ll be eternally grateful for that opportunity, I am more than what I did that day,” she says. “I am more than my most famous moment. I am all the moments, the light and the dark.”

Right now, Gorman is basking in the light. She’s moved out of her parents’ house and into her own place, and is relishing the fact that her brain is now fully formed: “My frontal cortex is just like, ‘Oh! Decision-making, executive functioning,’” she jokes.

While she’s drawn to various social causes (and even has plans to run for president in 2036), the idea of being a role model can be “daunting,” Gorman says. “How I try to internalize it in my own head is to say, ‘Maybe I’m the first, but I refuse to be the last.’ I hope I’m not a model of all there is or all that is possible for young voices, but rather an example of just how different and daring we can be.”

Gorman makes it clear that she’s not interested in saving the world. “It’s a lot to put on anyone,” she says, noting that she feels many unfairly look to Gen Z to rescue everyone. “That’s not to say that I don’t recognize the inimitable power of this generation, but I do think there’s something transactional that happens with it. So I’m like, ‘Yes, root for me, but please stand beside me.’ We need other generations to be active allies as opposed to silent bystanders saying, ‘You’ve got this covered.’ We’ve got it covered if we work together.”

On what she hopes will be her biggest impact

“I hope that my impact can be to inspire and encourage other people to engage with poetry as a form of social change.”

On the first woman who made an impression on her

“Obviously, my mother. The way she raised me always made me feel secure in my own strength and intelligence. As for a public figure, one of the earliest would be Oprah or Michelle Obama, because they first came into my consciousness when Barack Obama was running for president. There was a lot that he was doing with Oprah’s support. To see a Black woman be able to engage with and support a First Family like that was really inspiring.”

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Something, Someday by Amanda Gorman

On her career mantra.

“There’s the line: ‘I am the daughter of Black writers. We are descended from freedom fighters who broke their chains and changed the world.’ It’s something that I started reciting to myself before I would go onstage and do a performance or a high-stakes interview. It comes from me rewriting the Moana soundtrack. There’s a song called “I Am Moana (Song of the Ancestors)” that I love, and I just tweaked it a little bit so that it felt representative of my background as an African American woman. For me, it just means stepping into my heritage, stepping into my history, and bringing that with me whenever I engage with the world.”

On how her definition of success has changed

“My definition of success has changed from ‘How much can I achieve?’ to ‘How much can I honor myself and my needs in the face of my achievements?’ Now, a successful day is when I get enough hours of sleep and can check in on a friend, take a long walk, or write something meaningful.”

On something she got wrong in the past that she learned from

“For the early part of my career, I spent so much time burned out and exhausted because I didn’t know what rest was. I was just ‘Nose to the grindstone,’ and really never said no. I’m reclaiming my ‘No,’ which is also empowering my ‘Yes.’ I wish I’d learned that sooner, but I know it now. So the most I can do is live by it in the present.”

On the biggest goal for her career

“We talked about the presidency. I’m like, ‘Bigger than that?’ I think that’s the answer. And the L.A. Olympics are happening in 2028. I would love to recite a poem as part of those opening ceremonies, so [that’s my] second one. I’ve always wanted to see poetry as part of the Olympics.”

A version of this article appears in the April 2024 issue of ELLE.

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