Summary Of The Poem 'Emperors' By Stephen Dunn

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The poem “Emperors” by Pulitzer Prize winner Stephen Dunn expresses the thoughts of a speaker who is failing to connect with the world. Throughout the poem, the speaker, who calls himself an emperor, acknowledges his mistakes while displaying a yearning for internal change. The free verse and almost lyrical style of the poem allow the reader easily understand the stories told by the speaker. The reader can then delve into the text further to understand the metaphors the stories present. The first five lines tell the story of flies entering the emperor’s porch and biting him. A natural reaction to this would be anger towards the bugs. But, the speaker sees the biting from a different angle. If he, the emperor of “someday soon” (Dunn 5), simply