An Abandoned Factory, Detroit - Unseen Poetry

Here is a poem by Philip Levine - Read it through and allow yourself 10 minutes to take notes, using the UNTWIST process we’ve been working with. Then, when you’ve done so, listen to my first thoughts on the poem and compare your ideas with mine (remember, there is no ‘right’ answer to be found - instead, look for evidence to support your own ideas and embrace the fact that there are multiple readings available - use those modal verbs ladies and gents!).

The question this time is:

Explore how the poet presents the factory in ‘An Abandoned factory, Detroit’. Make close reference to language and structure in your answer.

An Abandoned Factory, Detroit

The gates are chained, the barbed-wire fencing stands,
An iron authority against the snow,
And this grey monument to common sense
Resists the weather. Fears of idle hands,
Of protest, men in league, and of the slow
Corrosion of their minds, still charge this fence.

Beyond, through broken windows one can see
Where the great presses paused between their strokes
And thus remain, in air suspended, caught
In the sure margin of eternity.
The cast-iron wheels have stopped; one counts the spokes
Which movement blurred, the struts inertia fought,

And estimates the loss of human power,
Experienced and slow, the loss of years,
The gradual decay of dignity.
Men lived within these foundries, hour by hour;
Nothing they forged outlived the rusted gears
Which might have served to grind their eulogy.

Philip Levine