A Young Man’s Thoughts before June the 16th By: Fhazel Johennesse Essay Example

we come from as a nation and how the youth can play such an important role in changing an entire history of a country.

Critical analysis on the poem: A young man’s thoughts before June the 16th, by Fhazel Johennese. To me “A young man’s thoughts before June the 16th”, written by Fhazel Johennese is quite a good poem. I must admit I had to read it quite a few times before I started to understand it. Although it is a short poem, the style is simple and the writer gets straight to the point. I understand that the poem is about a young man who is about to go and fight for his rights in South Africa, but I feel that he would rather be somewhere else.

I like the poem, it is not difficult to read and you can feel the emotions of the young boy through the words written in the poem. He is anxious about what tomorrow will bring and just wants to be a normal young person. He longs for his mother and wants to spend time with his friends and he knows that he will probably die. In this poem, Fhazel Johennesse is placing himself in somebody else’s shoes (this person knowing that he was going to die as a result of the march of June the 16th). Therefore he is not the narrator of the poem but rather a character which will result in his death.

The poet uses words like “I, me and my” which make the poem very personal and you can imagine the young man going through all the emotions that he

is going through. The poem can be seen both as literally and figuratively therefore making the reader or narrator enjoy how the poem has been described. In the literal sense, the person in the poem is going to march, “travel on a road” (line 1) on June the 16th. There is a use of alliteration which occurs by the use of the phrase “broad belch of beer” (line 7).

However figuratively, the “march” is the journey, the struggle, against apartheid for a better tomorrow. The speaker slows the poem down when reading it because of the repeated alliterations, this make the poem full of sadness. In the last line the poet writes that his sunset is drenched with red. This symbolises that there is going to be a lot of lives lost and their blood will be spilled all over the place. The poet uses a lot of literary devices in the poem: Firstly the whole poem is written in small letters.

This shows that the person in the poem feels inferior and does not think highly of himself. Also there are no punctuation marks used in the poem, the lines just go on and on. This emphasises the fact the he is in an on-going struggle that just goes on and on. His thoughts, “his sweet memories of (his) youth” are unstoppable. He thinks about the important things like his family and friends, despite his trials and tribulations. “The Friday nights…with a broad belch of beer” (alliteration in line 6 and 7) for example, were important to him.

His thoughts run onto the next line and maybe death will ultimately make

his thoughts break. The lines of the poem are long and because there are no punctuation marks in this poem, one does not know when to pause because of this. This therefore makes the poem to be slow paced and makes you think of a sad song, sung at funeral. This emphasises that the poem could be some kind of a tribute to one of the young men who died on June 16th. In the poem we also read about the “my heart aches for my mother…” (line 5) and “sweet memories of my youth” (line 4).

This makes me think that he must be very young and if he had the choice he would rather be somewhere else instead of facing death. When we read a poem such as this it makes us realise that many people old and young alike have died to make a difference in South Africa. On June the 16th we should remember what so many young people stood for and even gave their lives for. In the poem all that the young man wants is for someone to remembers and to tell others the story of what happened on June the 16th, so that those of died did not die for nothing.