I have chosen this poem because I think the girl in the poem has a strong point and I admire her for standing up for herself. Although I don’t have a personal connection with this poem as such because I have never done something so outrageous to stand up for what I think is right, I can relate to how she feels that she is constantly controlled by other people and their views.
The point of the poem is dealing with independence and growing up into an individual. Heidi is becoming her own person and is learning to harness the help of others. The poem addresses the matter of authority and how much authority is reasonable. “For Heidi With Blue Hair” also shows us how important the bond between parent and child is, as without her father’s help and support Heidi wouldn’t have achieved her own independence. We learn from the poem that we can’t get what we want if we don’t fight for it and Heidi is doing exactly this.
The poem is written in six stanzas each with five lines. The poem doesn’t rhyme and is told from the view of a spectator to the incident that seems close to Heidi. The poet writes with a satirical wit for example “you wiped your eyes, also not in the school colours” and “the teachers twittered and gave in” it is the word “twittered” that makes us laugh a little unkindly at the teachers manner of speaking. The poet is having a dig at the kind of person that may become a teacher. We are told quite early on that Heidi’s mother has died but the poet knows that Heidi has not dyed her hair to rebel against her mother’s death and tells us this be saying “It would have been unfair to mention your mothers death, but that shimmered behind the arguments.” The poet uses the metaphor “shimmered” in this sentence to say that although they were all aware of her mother’s death and it was still an issue it was not the main cause of the problems.
Heidi thinks her Headmistress is being unreasonable about her new hairstyle but it is in fact Heidi that is being unreasonable. Her new hairstyle is the comical factor of the poem and the system that cannot accommodate it is the thing being satirised.
I think the poem is a very effective way of putting across the point of independence and exactly how far we should go to express our point. The poem also questions whether authority is needed and how much. It has an effective way of showing that we need some authority to keep everything in order but not too much so that we are controlled by others.
