Beware Do Not Read This Poem Summary

The one time Weslowski uses punctuation is in stanza 2, line 13 (“Tattoos underwater, a guillotine of scarring”) and stanza 5, line 24 (“Clear-cut, neverreplanted”). Placing punctuation in two areas of the overall poem could suggest a break in the narrator’s thoughts, second guessing getting that tattoo because of its everlasting scars or thinking about how lonely they feel, believing or knowing, that they will never fully get over this. The use of no punctuation in the rest of the poem could symbolize the run on thoughts that are happening in whoever’s mind is speaking. Generally when something is traumatic or distressing, one’s mind can travel to several places. Not using periods, commas or even an ellipsis can signify the narrator’s whirlwind of a mind. This could be explaining that one never really stop thinking and that all of their thoughts are just as jumbled as they are. Another reason for creating the poem like this might be that Weslowski intended his audience to read the poem in a softer manner. Exclamation points are put in sentence to show excitement, parenthesis are used to show dialogue, but the author of this poem could have intended it to be read as a quieter piece. He might have placed nothing there so the reader would read it as if it was their own experience and how their own mind and thoughts would be during the

When the author’s father passed away, Wes was in shock, he said, “everything around you vanishes, all you hear is wind filling your ear, all you feel is the wind on your skin.... Your mind all but empties.” (Moore, 14) He couldn’t think or do anything. He was lost.

During a conversation between the father and Ely, a man they encountered in the road, Ely says, “When we're all gone at last then there'll be nobody here but death and his days will be numbered too. He'll be out in the road there with nothing to do and nobody to do it to. He'll say: Where did everybody go? And that's how it will be. What's wrong with that?” (McCarthy 173). When reading this, the reader is able to feel the sense of isolation each person feels within this time. By personifying Death, McCarthy further instills that the land is so barren and dead that even Death has lost a purpose, Death is isolated. McCarthy’s ability to evoke such an emotion within a reader allows the reader to understand the feeling of isolation and despair within the father and his son and any other refugee left, such as

To begin with, the author’s implementation of short sentence fragments throughout the poem illustrates the exasperation and frustration bottled up in women in response to

Each part was broken up after a noticeable shift and atmospheric changes in the poem. The first part of the poem is during “Sad is the man...with one”(Ln 1-2), and repeats again at “In a room...on his father”(Ln 6-9). These lines create a shift into a narrative stage. It puts a pause on the poem to introduce or explain the scene in the poem. The narrative is important because it shows the point of view of the poem. The second shift is created with “Already the man...should never disappoint”(Ln 10-18). This shift is when the father is thinking about his fears and desires, to be more blunt, the father’s fantasies. It creates an unrealistic tone to the poem an shows the father’s dismay when he cannot remember a story for his son. The last shift begins with “His five-year-old...scratches his ear”(Ln 3-5), and ends with “But the boy...up to silence”(Ln 19-23). This shift bring the poem into reality. In fact the poem states that the “emotional rather than logical equation”(Ln 20) is where most people get confused and frustrated at the world. The poem also states the conflict of fantasy and reality. This conflict is what creates the the multiple shifts and the complicated relationship between the father and the

One of two ways that the author’s use of dashes and unusual capitalization are used to contribute to my understanding of the theme of darkness in the poem is by having a dash after the word “dark” in the very first line of the poem it draws attention to the word, this is shown in the following excerpt “We grow accustomed to the Dark --” this is strengthened when in the second line, when the author chose to capitalize the word “when” before the phrase “…light is put away--” therefore, strengthening the theme of darkness. Another way that the author’s use of dashes and unusual capitalization are used to contribute to my understanding of the theme of darkness in the poem is by capitalizing the words “a” and “moment” they caused a sense of hesitation,

On screen there is an example of this device in The Apology Day Breakfast. This device runs on a thought from one line to another without punctuation, this causes breaks of rhythm and effects the rate of reading. The effect of using this device is the creation of a sense of disconnect, as a constant theme running throughout both poems. Similarly, both poems have no consistent rhyming scheme and lack basic punctuation. The decision of both poets to employ an unstructured approach in terms of form and punctuation creates discomfort within the reader and challenges them to makes sense of what has been written. The use of primary sources as annotations in Heart’s Core Lament brings further depth and provides the reader an opportunity to consider the implications of white colonisation on Australia’s indigenous people.

The use of symbolism and imagery is beautifully orchestrated in a magnificent dance of emotion that is resonated throughout the poem. The two main ideas that are keen to resurface are that of personal growth and freedom. Furthermore, at first glimpse this can be seen as a simple poem about a women’s struggle with her counterpart. However, this meaning can be interpreted more profoundly than just the causality of a bad relationship.

In his article “Fear of Narrative and the Skittery Poem of Our Moment,” Tony Hoagland argues that modern poetry is “oblique,” “fractured,” and “discontinuous”. He believes that poems no longer have systematic structure or development, making them appear random with skittish tendencies. Because of the poems that Hoagland feels are different, he categorizes most new poems to be like the kind he describes in his article. He further evaluates new poetry by claiming that “narrative poetry is tainted by overuse” and that the time we live in is “simply not a narrative age.” He uses several poems to support his argument such as, “Couples” by Mark Halliday and “First Person Fabulous” by Matthea Harvey. He utilizes these poems because they possess no true focal point and the structure restricts them from having a clear narrative.

The pervasive theme of disappearance is perhaps the most important motif of the novel. Wade,

Punctuation is also used to create emphasis at several places in the poem. The end of the first stanza has two commas in the lines, slowing the pace and rhythm to reflect the farmer’s emotion of puzzle caused by the wife's escape. The end of the fourth stanza also has two commas in the lines, which underscores that they have no relationship at all because they barely talk to each other. In the final stanza the breaking of the rhythm by various uses of punctuation suggests the farmer is struggling to deal with his wife's fear, but also yearning for

Evan Lewis – LI-208 – Three Page Essay: Everything I Never Told You – 10/27/17

This shows an unstable mental state. It reminds the reader of someone who is stressed out or worried, so they are just scribbling on the page. It also shows someone who is not sure of themselves. The reader can clearly see there was writing, but cannot make sense of the words crossed out. This shows that someone had thoughts and then decided after writing them they did not want them anymore. This indecisive and unstable personality that is revealed through the cross outs makes the reader think the person is going through a rough time which is another reason the reader may think it is about when someone finds out about a loved one passing away. The author writes “my head feels foggy-light and dark” (15) to describe how someone feels when they find out tragic news. Their head can feel so clogged because this news can be shocking and overwhelming. Furthermore, the spacing of the poem goes from spaced out to close together. That pattern is repeated twice. The more spaced out lines refer to more calm observations. For example, “Weeds near the bank” (8) creates a visual to the reader of a peaceful water bank with some weeds on the side. The image of water creates a calming effect on the reader. The spacing helps the reader read that part of the poem slowly and really take in all the meaning behind the lines.

The text, particularly illustrates this in the third line of the poem when she writes, “And feel once more I do not live in vain/Although bereft of you. (1916)” This line has a line break as a result of the author trying to show the silence that is briefly followed by vain, has a purpose and that purpose is to show grief in the tone of voice when spoken aloud. This specific type of line break is a syntactic, considering it is the other complete clause and it ends with a comma. If it didn't have a line break the sentence it would make (And feel once more I do not live

Ted Kooser, the thirteenth Poet Laureate of the United States and Pulitzer Prize winner, is known for his honest and accessible writing. Kooser’s poem “A Spiral Notebook” was published in 2004, in the book Good Poems for Hard Times, depicting a spiral notebook as something that represents more than its appearance. Through the use of imagery, diction, and structure, Ted Kooser reveals the reality of a spiral notebook to be a canvas of possibilities and goes deeper to portray the increasing complexities in life as we age.