Poetic Device Paper

In Those Winter Sundays, Eating Alone, and My Papa’s Waltz, the speakers all experience some form of isolation, while recalling their childhood relationship with fathers. This isolation causes loneliness, which then takes a variety of forms such as emotional, physical, or both. The fact that these authors brought to our attention these specific poems, shows that children inherit certain values from their emotional connection with their fathers in childhood, and take those values with them into adulthood, and into their own families.

Poetry is known to be a creative thought or impassioned feeling using language and is expressed in many places in the world. A poem can have many different meanings according to how an individual interprets it. Various literary devices are used to bring out that interpretation and the sense of what the person thinks that is going to happen. In the poem “Saturday at the Canal” by Gary Soto and “Nothing Better” by The Postal Service the theme is sometimes in life you may go through tough times but it is up to you whether they will continue. Some literary devices that show the coming up from tough times are figurative language, imagery, and the mood of the poems/songs.

Poetry is oftentimes associated with the subjects of love and romance. Poets throughout the ages have used this medium to express their deepest emotions in the most eloquent of ways. Whether the poet is a man or woman is irrelevant. Poets of both genders have succeeded in expressing a heartfelt love to another with a poetic language that speaks volumes in a relatively short amount of text. Two poets from two separate eras each wrote a poem with just such a theme. Anne Bradstreet in “To My Dear and Loving Husband” and Edgar Allan Poe in “Annabel Lee” created magic by writing these poems that express a love for another that transcends time and place.

In the poem “Self’s the Man” he portrays Man to be more superior to women. His opinion of love’s initial excitement contrasted with the

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

The poem Audit is about a married couple that has suffered at the hands of time. After however many years, the pair have fallen apart. The two were at one point both very much in love, and although the man still loves his wife or at the very least feels affection towards her, she no longer feels that their relationship is profitable or enjoyable. The only hope to save the relationship is for the man to change his disagreeable behavior. The major themes of this poem are love – but not in the ‘love conquers all’ view that is often present in poems, plays, and novels, quite the opposite. In fact, if anything, love can be compared to a business in this context. In addition, this poem contains a bounty of literary devices and poetic forms that contribute to the themes and purpose of the poem.

Unlike other forms of literature, poetry can be so complex that everyone who reads it may see something different. Two poets who are world renowned for their ability to transform reader’s perceptions with the mere use of words, are TS Eliot and Walt Whitman. “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock” by TS Eliot, tells the story of a man who is in love and contemplating confessing his emotions, but his debilitating fear of rejection stops him from going through with it. This poem skews the reader’s expectations of a love song and takes a critical perspective of love while showing all the damaging emotions that come with it. “Song of myself”, by Walt Whitman provokes a different emotion, one of joy and self-discovery. This poem focuses more on the soul and how it relates to the body. “Song of myself” and “The love song of J Alfred Prufrock” both explore the common theme of how the different perceptions of the soul and body can affect the way the speaker views themselves, others, and the world around them.

Here, more new knowledge had appeared through the word “intimate contact”. The boy, still young in age, asks his father of the word and the response by the father was, “That’s how you made your way into this world”. This information is dense substance making the reader think the alcohol had a healthy part in the answer from the father. The answers the boy got from his father made him ponder and think about his father's seriousness. Comparing the father to Frankenstein, the speaker described him stating, “Some sense went wrong”. Despite questioning his father's authenticity, the boy watches and grasps the knowledge of how intimacy works. After this discovery, there is a major shift in the poem. In the last two stanzas, the poem transforms form the thoughts of a little boy to a man. As the man looks back on his childhood, he realizes he is ultimately no different from his father. This is where the speaker reveals the answer form all the curiosity which happened during his

In Galway Kinnell’s poem “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps” Kinnell writes about the love between a parent and child.

The relationship between a parent and child is potentially one of the most influential in a child’s life. A positive interaction often yields admiration, love or a sense of support. A negative relationship may yield distrust, animosity or a sense of solitude. Theodore Roethke’s poem, “My Papa’s Waltz,” describes the admiration of his hardworking father. The speaker, a young boy, depicts roughhousing with his father in the form of a waltz; expressing his desire to stay up and spend more time together though their relationship is detached. Seamus Heaney’s “Digging,” instills a sense of respect, pride, and a slight affliction for the speaker’s choice of the pen over the spade. The speaker has chosen a different path in life than that of his father and grandfather. Although written at different stages in life, both Roethke and Heaney write a poem about their families utilizing vivid imagery to demonstrate the love and pride they felt for these men.

There are many different themes that can be used to make a poem both successful and memorable. Such is that of the universal theme of love. This theme can be developed throughout a poem through an authors use of form and content. “She Walks in Beauty,” by George Gordon, Lord Byron, is a poem that contains an intriguing form with captivating content. Lord Byron, a nineteenth-century poet, writes this poem through the use of similes and metaphors to describe a beautiful woman. His patterns and rhyme scheme enthrall the reader into the poem. Another poem with the theme of love is John Keats' “La Belle Dame sans Merci,” meaning “the beautiful lady without mercy.” Keats, another nineteenth-century writer, uses progression and compelling

Leaves of Grass is Walt Whitman’s life legacy and at the same time the most praised and condemned book of poetry. Although fearful of social scorn, there are several poems in Leaves of Grass that are more explicit in showing the homoerotic imagery, whereas there are several subtle – should I say “implicit” – images woven into the fabric of the book. It is not strange, then, that he created many different identities in order to remain safe. What Whitman faced in writing his poetry was the difficulty in describing and resonating manly and homosexual love. He was to find another voice of his, a rhetoric device, and his effort took two forms: simplified, and subverted word play.

The middle-class ladies didn't work, and didn't have a life outside their homes. They dedicated all of their time, energies and passions into keeping their men happy and contented; and in return, were loved, pampered and protected from the harsh realities of life. Even though this idea of total subjection and passivity, wouldn't have a hope of success in today's society, the level of trust and commitment these two "Romantic Poets" apparently share, could be the ideal that all couples should aspire to. In sharp contrast to Browning idealistic and spiritual love poetry of the 1800s, Seamus Heaney's Twice Shy uses an altogether more contemporary and realistic style of prose too describe love in the 20th century.

Whitman's Poem "Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking," is not, at first glance, an obvious love poem. Most readers would probably consider this a tragic poem about death and love lost. In spite of the fact that the poem is about intrinsically sorrowful events, or perhaps because of it, Whitman is able to capture a very unique and poignant portrayal of love. There are three major perspectives to examine how Whitman develops the theme of love in Out of the Cradle, and by examining each reoccurring theme in the poem separately, we can come to a more complete understanding of how they work together to communicate Whitman's message about love.

Several poems in the anthology explore the intensity of human emotion. Explore this theme, referring to these three poems in detail and by referencing at least three other poems from your wider reading.’