Karanlığa ışık tutmak: mıchael longley’nin şiirinde çiçeklerin simgesel ve işlevsel kullanımı

The Northern Irish poet Michael Longley uses flowers functionally and symbolically as examples of an alternative life while dealing with the social fragmentation in his country. Flowers, in his poems, are both symbols of hope and medicines for physical and mental wounds. With such characteristics, they are amongst indispensable elements of traditional treatment methods and key parts of the power of contemporary man clinging on to life. On the other hand, as in the example of the red poppy which was transformed into a political symbol, having become a flower representing the soldiers killed in war, they emerge as components that do not heal the current problem but make it more severe. In such circumstances, rather than standing closer to an alternative life, they are closer to the contemporary world paralysed by conflicts. However, excluding their disassociating political connotations, it can be said that Longley draws on all flowers in his call to peace. He points to their unity and harmony within themselves, despite the differences in their colours, smells and sizes, as an example to Northern Irish society and describes codes of living together through them