Donald Justice's Poem And Literary Techniques

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

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