Memory and the past was greatly concerned in the two poems "The Early Purges," by Seamus Heaney and "Piano and drums," by Gabriel Okara. Through usage of effective writing and poetic techniques, we are able to compare and contrast the treatment of this subject in the two poems.

In `The Early Purges,' the persona recalls the memory of his first experience of witnessing a cruel killing.. The poem begins with a shocking opening sentence. "I was six when I first saw kittens drown." This tells us that the persona was a mere innocent six year old boy when he saw the murder. The experience scarred him for life, and created a memory which he could never forget. The first stanza uses many consonants, in words such as "Taggart, scraggy, bucket, metal."

The sounds of these words are hard and rough, which implies how the kittens are being...