Crossing train tracks

I look ahead towards the distant road

The teasing tracks that separate our class

The slums beside enhance the gloomy sky

While the villas across the tracks do glow

Few have the right but some have the privilege

Do they not know the tingle of hunger?

And do inquire the source of their next meal?

The ample discrepancies separate,

Yet they bring assortment to turn us whole

I didn’t choose my meager ancestry,

I thought as I walk and a train had passed,

Visualising a greater tomorrow,

To outdo heritage is to cross tracks

Analysis

Crossing train tracks is a poem written by Colin Penk in blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter) that explores themes of social class.  The poem describes a town, separated by train tracks that has a rich side on one side of the tracks and a poor side on the other.  The speaker of the poem is from the poor part of town and is questioning hierarchical structures in society.

The poem starts off with the author describing the town.  He uses imagery to describe the difference between the rich and poor side; saying that the slums “enhance the gloomy sky” making the poor side of town seem really dark and eerie, contrary to the way the “villas across the tracks do glow”.  The tone of the poem is very discouraging.  The narrator finds it unfair how some people in this world are lucky and born into a rich family while others are unlucky and born into a poor family.  The end of the poem is a little more hopeful because the narrator thinks he can cross the tracks to the other side of town and to a better life.  The train tracks in this poem are a symbol for the obstacles that some people must overcome and cross in order to achieve a better, happier life.  However not everyone has as many obstacles due to some people being born into a higher social/economic class.

This poem illustrates how some people in this world are a lot luckier than others.  Sometimes one must do more and work harder than others in this world in order to get what they want and achieve their goals.  Colin Penk’s poem illustrates how much luckier some people are compared to others.  For example, the different life styles lived in Canada compared to an African third world country like Kenya.  But in the free world, anyone can do whatever they want if they work hard enough and put their mind to it.

Side Note: I was originally trying to write a sonnet but found it difficult to make a good poem in iambic pentameter that also had to rhyme.