ipl-logo

Donald Justice's Poem And Literary Techniques

540 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: 'This poem is not intended for me': analysis of Donald Justice's poem

Donald Justice’s Poem and Literary Techniques Many people read poems as if there is an enlightening experience waiting to change their lives. Poem by Donald Justice is an intriguing, unique poem that mocks this idea, emphasizing to readers that poems are not meant to be profound. To convey this idea, Donald Justice uses literary techniques such as meter and scansion (or lack thereof), and strong metaphors. In the first quatrain of Poem, it becomes clear that the poem possesses no consistent rhyme scheme, meter, or foot. “This poem is not addressed to you. You may come into it briefly, But no one will find you here, no one. You will have changed before the poem will” (Justice). The first line has nine syllables, second has eight, third has eight, and the fourth has ten, making for a total of 36 syllables. In the next quatrain, there is 45; the one after has 39 syllables. This inconsistency in syllables is not due to laziness, but rather, to solidify the poem’s theme: the radical idea that poems are not meant to be enlightening. Not having a consistent rhyme scheme, meter, or foot means that the poem …show more content…

Justice’s metaphors are carefully crafted, they sound ambiguous but still fit into the grand scheme of the poem without sounding out of place. He even explicity states that you shoud not try to understand what the poem means in quatrain five.“You neither can nor should understand what it means. Listen, it comes without guitar, Neither in rags nor any purple fashion” (Justice). Justice wanted to confuse his reader, it is part of his grand plan. They will be sucked in, wanting to find the meaning of the poem, but then they will realize that there is not suppose to be a meaning, as that’s what the entire poem is about: that poems can not enlighten your life, and that will get them to think more about

Show More
Related
734 Words | 3 Pages

My younger sister, Anna, is an accomplished and impressive artist in her own right, but she is the type of person to constantly downplay her own talent and think that she is not good compared to others. An example of this is when she drew a picture of someone’s eye freehand, and the drawing was incredible! It looked extremely lifelike and was absolutely stunning. She tried to tell me that it was nothing, that it was not very good and that she had not taken much time to draw it, but I shot those negative thoughts down immediately, telling her that it was an amazing piece of art and that she should consider entering an art competition with it. She did not end up entering that particular piece, but later she entered an art show with a different

Read More
808 Words | 4 Pages

Explication of ' "Hard Rock Returns to Prison” In the society, people focus much on heroes to see whether they will fall or remain as heroes. The poem ‘Hard Rock Returns to Prison...’ is a narrative tale of life in prison. ‘Hard Rock’ is a hero in the prisons. Every member of the prison are out to see how he has lost his lobotomy.

Read More
693 Words | 3 Pages

Towards the middle of the poem, the meter changed to 4 syllables. At the end of the poem, the meter was much more. The meter for Stanza 14 was fourteen syllables. Stanza 26 was seventeen syllables. There is not a consistent poetic foot.

Read More
669 Words | 3 Pages

The first stanza contains 6 lines, with 3 of them being enjambment lines and the

Read More
849 Words | 4 Pages

To further looking at the different types, Kimberly Moen describes lyric poetry as “Poetry expressing emotion or mood” (15). Easily deduced by the themes discussed above, it becomes obvious to understand why the other two poets chose this type of to express it. The poems feel as if they mean to teach a lesson about what they learned in their lives; rather than tell a story requiring interpretation. They likely believe the best way to teach a lesson requires tapping into reader’s emotions. To further a deeper comprehension of poetry, the next logical step remains depicting the rhyme and

Read More
402 Words | 2 Pages

The ballad’s syllables enhance interest in the poem. The first and last stanzas both have the same number of syllables per line, which is expressed nowhere else in the poem; this creates a sense of harmony at the end of the poem (1-4, 49-52). Conversely, the variety of syllables per line allows the song to have a complex tune. However, most lines are either 7 or 8 syllables,

Read More
155 Words | 1 Pages

Not many parts of this poem have a rhyme. Then again there is a rhythm I find in a way interesting and the meaning it has says a lot. Lines 8 through 11 explain and talk about how she worked and did mother duties as she raised all 12 of her children but later on lost them when she and Davis turned sixty. The line after explains what she did for others. Moreover, this poem does have a couple of alliteration in very few of the lines and in every line it explains and talks about something different.

Read More
833 Words | 4 Pages

Poetry is a piece of literature where the author shares his ideas of a subject or person. He is attempting to allow the reader an understanding of his feelings regarding this subject. Most of the time poetry can be very pleasing to the ear; however, at times it can be written in a manner that is odd. Some poetry is written in a way that the reader can “hear”, “feel”, “see” or “taste” elements in the poem. Some poems may rhyme while others may not need to in order to convey the message.

Read More
207 Words | 1 Pages

In the third stanza, although there is a comma instead of an enjambment at the end of line 9, the coma serves a similar purpose to one because it creates a pause that seems less severe than the dashes at the ends of the rest of the lines; and helps prove the stanza’s message that a “self encounter” is more severe than an external one. Lines 9 and 11 do not rhyme, which therefore disrupts the rhythm of sound and draws attention to the lines. Line 9 talks about external danger, and line 11 discusses internal danger; so the author wants to convey that internal haunting is different than external haunting by not rhyming them. Throughout the whole poem, the first and third lines of each stanza are all almost in an iambic pentameter, followed by

Read More
710 Words | 3 Pages

The speaker describes the head as "a leader who rules with a firm hand" (Davis 10) and the heart as "a rebel who refuses to be contained" (Davis 11). This metaphor serves to emphasize the struggle between the head and heart and the idea that the two are often in opposition. The use of metaphor adds depth to the poem and allows the speaker to express complex ideas in a succinct and effective manner. Additionally, the metaphor helps to bring the abstract concepts of control and opposition to life, making the poem more accessible and relatable to the reader. Through this device, the poet is able to convey a powerful message about the human experience and the ongoing struggle between rational thought and emotional

Read More
897 Words | 4 Pages

What about the odd-numbered lines? Let 's look at line 25, for example: “If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue”. Every stanza has the following rhyme scheme: ABABCDCD, where each letter represents that line 's end rhyme. It 's the poem 's way of making the nuts and bolts of poetry display the poem 's message.

Read More
1169 Words | 5 Pages

Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973) is an english-american poet considered as one of the most influent and important of the 20th century. This poem was first written in 1936 as a satiric poem for the play The Ascent of F6 that he wrote with Christopher Isherwood. This poem has been reworked by Auden in 1938 with the help of Benjamin Britten to turn it into a song for a famous singer of the time, Hedli Anderson. W.H. Auden published the final version of the poem Funeral Blues in 1940 in his book Another Time as one of the “Four Cabaret songs for Miss Hedli Anderson”. The poem became more famous again when a character of the film “Four weddings and a funeral” recites the poem during his lover funerals.

Read More
915 Words | 4 Pages

Bader Jamal Ms. Lauren Grade 10-m November 28, 2016 The sloth I will be analyzing the poem “the sloth” by Theodore Roethke. This poem is an organic poem it basically speaks about a sloth and describing him. In this essay I will be explaining the poem and talk about poetic devices, figurative language, the theme of the poem, and the imagery. Then I will link this poem to the learner profiles and to the global context.

Read More
907 Words | 4 Pages

The fourth and fifth stanzas consist of single lines. Their isolation causes an emphasis on their meanings. The fourth stanza,” I am trying to be truthful”, might represent the fact that honesty is a crucial issue for the poet in this poem, and in a relationship

Read More
1331 Words | 6 Pages

A poem is a highly organised use of language. It is a complex of many patterns that interact in an endless process of imaginative possibility. There is always a speaker and an audience and they are connected intricately. If the speaker takes the form of the audience it becomes highly meditative. The connection between the speaker and the reader is Whitman tries to revolutionise “For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you...

Read More

More about Donald Justice's Poem And Literary Techniques

Related Topics

Open Document