GL

TheCockroach
Kevin Halligan
I watched a giant cockroach start to pace,
Skirting a ball of dust that road the floor.
At first he seemed quite satisfied to trace
A path between the wainscot and the door,
But soon he turned to jog in crooked rings,
Circling the rusty table leg and back,
And flipping right over to scratch his wingsAs if the victim of a mild attack
Of restlessness that worsened over time.
After a while, he climbed an open shelf
And stopped. He looked uncertain where to go.
Was this due payment for some vicious crime
A former life had led to? I dont know
Except I thought I recognised myself.

GL
The Cockroach: What is the speaker reflecting upon and what methods
does the poet use to convey this to the reader?
The Cockroach can be interpreted in two ways. First, the more obvious
meaning that the poet is watching a cockroach pace around the floor.
However after a closer analysis the reader understands that Kevin Halligan
uses the giant cockroach as a metaphor to describe himself and his life,
or other giant people and their lives. Through his choice of structure,
language and various literary devices, the poet can convey his message to
the readers effectively and shape their thoughts and reactions on the
subject.
The poem is written in the form of a sonnet. Although at first this seems to
confine the poet and limit his detail and content, thus having a less
powerful impact on the reader, it does the opposite. The rigid restrictions
allow the poet to condense his message and ideas into fourteen lines,
which not only makes the poem more dramatic but also emphasizes his
reflections. There is also a regular rhyme scheme, ababcdcd in the octave
and defdfe. The slight change in rhythm from the octave to sestet helps to
highlight the change in the cockroachs movements, or the poets life. The
regular rhythm in the octave also helps to set the pace of the cockroach
and may represent a clock ticking as in time passing by.
This idea is also suggested by the choice of Halligans vocabulary. He uses
time phrases to indicate stages in his life, such as at first in the third
line, but soon in the fifth, over time and after a while in the sestet. In
the first quatrain the poet describes the beginning of his life. Quite
satisfied implies that he was happy with his life then, and the verb to
trace suggests that there was a clear path, mentioned in line four, set
out for him and he was guided from one stage of his life to the next just
like how the cockroach walks a path between the wainscot and the door.
The second quatrain starts off with but soon. The but signifies a
turning point in the poets life, and he turned away from the clear path
and instead tries to jog in crooked rings. This suggests that at this point
in time he was confused. By placing the but at the beginning of the
sentence he is emphasizing it, letting the readers know its importance.
Circling might mean he is trying to walk straight but instead he walks in
circles; his life is different than before and he does not know where to go
anymore. The word jog is used to imply that this period went by slowly,
as people usually jog for long distance runs. The poet uses many humanlike verbs such as jog to describe the cockroachs actions, once again
hinting that the intended description is not of the cockroach, but of a
human, perhaps Halligan himself. Other actions include circling because
real cockroaches dont know what circles are, flipping over, to scratch.
The last line is also very humanly victim of a mild attack may suggest
that the poet was victimized at this point in his life.
The enjambment of the line links it with the sestet, which shows that they
are connected. The octave describes and introduces the issue to us, and
the sestet concludes it. By connecting the two lines, the poet binds the
entire poem together, clearly showing the link one part of his life to the
another. After a while, the cockroach climbed on an open shelf.
Climbed suggests that the poet was much stronger and working very

GL
hard then, because a lot of strength is needed for climbing. The fact that
he was climbing upwards suggests improvement, as if he was doing better
then. Open shelf creates the image of a vast, wide area with endless
opportunities stored inside. However, it suddenly stops in line eleven,
there is a very abrupt and stopped. The enjambment from a very long
line ten creates a very sudden, dramatic effect, as if the poet was building
up tension and then suddenly dropping it. It makes the readers a little
uncertain of what to think, which is exactly what Halligan wants, because
he writes in the same line that he looked uncertain where to go. The
impact of these words are that they reflect on the natural human behavior.
He seems to have planned his dreams and goals so clearly, yet when he
achieves them he doesnt expect it and somehow doesnt know what to
do. He is perplexed and we can interpret this from line thirteen, when the
poet asks a question: A former life had led to? I dont know. It stresses
his puzzled feeling.
The poet ends the sestet by wrapping it all up with the line Except I
thought I recognised myself. By placing this line at the very end of the
poem, readers concentrate more on it and it shows purpose. It reassures
the reader that he was indeed trying to refer to himself in the poem, his
thoughts, his actions and his past.

GL
The Cockroach Kevin Halligan
** Canadian poet, widely traveled, this was written while in Asia.
Influenced, it seems, by the simplicity and focus on minute detail of much
Asian poetry (haiku) small snapshots of life that represent large ideas.
Poetic Devices
1

Tone/ big focus in this poem. Tone is not the usual revulsion people
have toward cockroaches. Its objective and analytical, moving toward
empathetic and meditative

Rhyme/ simple, focus on content/moment, twist at end signals shift

Blank narrator/ focus on event, relatable

Extended metaphor/ cockroach as the poet/as us; snapshot reflects

Structure
Simplicity is tightly constructed (like HS) and is crafted to focus on
content and feeling, not distracting or lengthy prose
The CR is given great attention and importance usually reserved for
human subjects. This foreshadows the CR being the poet at the end.
CR moving along straight line of wainscot and door symbolizes our
steady paths early in life. We all go to school, graduate, uni, grad, job,
married, kids...but then confusion happens: restlessness, flipping right
over and victim of a mild attack. We dont know what comes next. No
one is telling us what we should do anymore. The short sentence amid all
the long ones, And stopped, also shows this confusion. Life works in
cycles: stabilityconfusiondecision. The CR/poet stops dead because of
indecision (instead of fear in HS). He needs to decide what to do next
like a midlife crisis. Feelings/tone of pity for CR shown. The poet feels this
same existential/life crisis. The rhetorical question focus reader on their
choices/actions/repercussions. The concept of karma comes into play here
peoples responsibilities re: actions and consequences. That the poet
jumps to the conclusion that this is karmic punishment for CR could signal
guilt he has over something hes done. The focus is beginning to shift here
from CR to poet

GL
I emerges as a true character then. This emphasizes that poet is now
reflecting on his own life, own confusion about life, own need to make
choices
Analysis
Tone is not the usual revulsion associated with cockroaches. Not awe, like
HS, but empathy/affinity. The poet is shown to know no more about
life/these existential issues than a cockroach. This connects the poet and
CR (just as it universally connects all of us none of us know what is
supposed to come next. Karma again: some believe you are on Earth to
figure out your purpose. You keep coming back and making choices until
you do. We dont know what the right choices are and this lack of
knowledge brings us together). This idea of oneness with a CR is
humbling. Man likes to think with our big brains were superior but were
not. Were equal (diff from HS but both involve idea of respect for
Nature, just for different reasons)
Serious poem (simple, straight-forward structure is more informative than
poetic). Few breaks, remember, reflects the continuous nature of life and
how it will go on without you if you dont make decisions. The short line
(line 8) signals a shift in the poem from straight-forward observation to a
more complex process of existential realization (were all the same). The
irregular rhyme scheme at end is not just a reflection of this more complex
content, but it also reflects the existential confusion felt by the CR/poet/all
of us
We can see a theme of a) need to live responsibly, b) Man and Nature as
equal, sharing an affinity over lifes crises/ a lack of definite knowledge of
what to do next. Here, Man and Nature are not inferior/superior like in
HS (were equal), but respect for Nature is shared in both poems (via
fear/awe in HS and via understanding/ affinity in TC) and a sense of
Man being humbled (via fear/awe/inferiority in HS and via
affinity/empathy/equality in TC

GL
"Comment on the particular presentation and observations of the
narrator."
The narrator is initially a blank narrator as he focuses purely on the
events, which consists of the cockroach moving across a room. As the
poem progresses, the narrator draws away from purely the event and
comments on the "restlessness" and uncertainty that this insect
eventually portrays. This change is observation coupled with the
presentation of the cockroach as the main focus, foreshadows what is to
come in the poem
Many a poem's focus, mainly reserved for human attention, but in this
poem, the cockroach, a dirty, repulsive insect takes the place as the main
focus and this could foreshadow the author's projection of himself as the
cockroach. This projection, defining empathy, is further reinforced by the
continuous use and prevalence of "I" in the last few lines. The "I" present
in this poem initially concerning a cockroach indicates that the poet is
reminiscing about his life and choices
The rhyme scheme is simple as the narrator describes his observation but
changes when the narrator is reminiscing and asking rhetorical questions
until the rhyme scheme is shattered by the last line. "Except I thought I
recognised myself", this line shows the complex content held by the
change in feeling and thought pattern of the narrator. This confusion is in
turn felt by the reader as the gravity of the poet's self projection is
grasped by the reader
The reader initially assigns a repulsive idea when reading the title but the
narrator's empathetic presentation of the cockroach and eventual
meditative and nostalgic tendencies are present, showing the selfreflection in the closing lines, which are ironic in that it goes against what
the reader expects
This poem links very nicely in its narrator's presentation to that of the The
Hunting Snake by Judith Wright, in which both poems present their main
focus as natural personas, yet the underlying, extended metaphors differ

GL
The Cockroach: Kevin Halligan
At first glance, the poem The Cockroach by Kevin Halligan is about, as
the name suggests, a cockroach. However, with a deeper reading, it later
appears that the detailed description of the cockroach is an extended
metaphor of either, the persona (presumably the poet himself) or of
humans in general. This is first hinted by the fact that the cockroach is
giant is it large for its species, or large to the point it is the size of a
human? This is later reinforced by the activities of the cockroach described
in later lines jog, trace, circle, etc remarkably human like actions for
an insect. These closely described frantic actions of the cockroach (lines 311) seem to represent human nature in a way; first the cockroach is
satisfied with his current situation, but then quickly gets bored of it and
begins to want something more, something new, and so does so
beginning to shift from his activity of tracing the path between the
wainscot and the door to jog in crooked rings. He is then struck by a
case of restlessness, but then finally finds something exciting, new the
open shelf. However instead of going straight in, he hesitates, he looked
uncertain where to go. His actions seem to represent human nature, how
we, sometimes very suddenly, realize that instead of being content and
satisfied with what we have, we want more more experience, more
money, more social life the depths of human wants are endless. We soon
get restless and bored and disappointed at our current lives as it is not
where we want to be
However, when we actually find an opportunity to take the chances to get
what we want there is sometimes a moment of hesitation and
uncertainty: is this what we really want? Is the risk worth it to take the
chance? Do we really want to leave our comfortable current life? And then,
along with the definite realization that the cockroach personifies the
persona or humans in general with the last line (Except I thought I
recognized myself), the true idea of the poem is revealed that humans
scurry through life frantically, almost rushing through it, but without any
true goal or purpose. We are constantly looking for choices we can take,
but when actually presented with them, realize that we dont even know
what we truly want