Poetry Project

Alexia Miller
Throughout the past couple of days, I have been reading many poems and have found ten

that I can connect with. I believe that all of them use many literary elements in the correct ways,

and the authors were able to successfully reach the reader.

The first poem that spoke to me was Alison Stormwolfs poem Lovers. This poem talks

about the strong connection two people feel when they are in love. The author uses a romantic

tone throughout out the poem in lines such as Let me hold you, through the dark hours.

Stormwolf also uses diction, choice of words, while writing the poem. To convey to the reader

that there is a strong bond between the two lovers, she uses words such as sweet darling and

physical sensation. The author uses a first person point of view and can be proven in the line

let me hold you. I can connect to this poem because I have a boyfriend of three years, and I

still have a strong connection of feelings toward him.

While searching a very sensitive topic for me, I found a poem that I can personally relate

to. I discovered a poem called Demons of Darkness by Olivia B. The poem talks about a girl who

is standing on a bridge with her thoughts running wild. She starts seeing these demons (her bad

thoughts) who start clawing at her, telling her to give up. She considers giving in to them but at

the end of the poem, the girl decides to fight the demons for another day. This author writes this

poem to tell readers about the battles of depression. I can connect with this because I used to

have these thoughts and want to give up everything, but I was able to fight the demons off and

am continuing to hold them off. The poem is broken up into four line stanzas. With the stanzas,

the author uses another literary device called end rhyme where the last word of the second and
fourth line of each stanza rhyme. An example of the end rhyme in the poem is the following

stanza:

She stood on the bridge

In silence and fear

For the demons of darkness

Had driven her here

The rhyme in the poem helps keep a steady rhythm throughout the poem.

Another simple poem that I could felt a connection with is The Fear of Failure by

Derrick Andrews. In this poem, the author uses various literary devices to help convey a message

of having a fear of failing and messing everything up. Andrews uses a lot of negative connotation

in his poem to make some lines seem a lot more negative. An example would be If the only

thing you can do is wound me, you've already lost, beast with negatively connotated words

including wound, lost, and beast. He also uses a metaphor in the following line to describe how

he felt compared to the beast (his fear), I realized that I was an ant. By looking at the two lines

given previously, the reader can see that there is a very dark tone throughout this poem. I have a

fear of failure and will need to accept that it is okay to fail just like the author talked about in his

poem.

While growing up, I had a little personal library of books that my parents had given me

and my sister to read. Among the books was a book of poems called A Light in the Attic by Shel

Silverstein. At the time, I didnt realize they were poems, but I loved reading the poems within

the book. So for this project, I decided to check it out from the library and read over some of the
poems again. Among the first few poems I read from the book, I found one that I could relate too

in a comedic way. It is called Messy Room. Silverstein uses the literation device of alliteration

in the poem with repeating many of the lines with the word his or the hih sound. He also

uses a lot of imagery to describe the state that the room is in. Two lines that portrays the imagery

well are His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair, And the chair is becoming quite mucky

and damp. He uses irony as well, because throughout the whole poem the speaker is

complaining about how messy the room is and describing all the things they see, and at end they

realize that is their own room. I can relate to this because my room is always a mess.

Another poem by Shel Silverstein that I read as a child and I find a little humorous now is

called Superstitious. The poems names off many actions that people find have a superstitious feel

about the like opening an umbrella indoors or walking under an open ladder. The last line in the

poem has irony. He says I am not superstitious (knocks on wood) showing irony because

knocking on wood is a superstitious thing. Silverstein also uses a lot of unnecessary apostrophes

throughout the poem. These apostrophes can add on a short of childish tone, because children

tend to not pronounce words completely and may say round instead of around. He also has a

meter in the poem which means that he carries a steady rhythm throughout the poem.

Another poem that I liked is Allen Tates Shadow and Shine. The poem discusses a person

walking around and a shadow is continuing to follow them. The person tries to friend the shadow

but it turns out to be the persons fear and how they came to be alone in the world. My fear

prevents me from doing a lot of things that I want to do and I feel a connection to the poem in

that sort of sense. In terms of literary devices, the author uses a rhyme scheme to keep the flow

of the poem. The first and third line of each stanza rhyme with each other while the second and

fourth line rhyme with each other in a different sense. There is also a speaker to the poem. It is
not necessarily being told by the author but by someone else unknown to the reader. The author

of the poem includes the use of personification when talking about the shadow. A good example

of personification from the poem is the line Shadow was crushed beyond disguise.

There was another poem by Allen Tate that made me stop and read; its called Mother

and Son. In this poem, it talks about a mother who is at her sons bedside. The son is very sick

and dies near the end of the poem. In the poem, the reader sees how the mom feels from a limited

point of view. A literary device used in the poem is rhyme. An example of this would be shown

in the following stanza:

The falcon mother cannot will her hand

Up to the bed, nor break the manacle
His exile sets upon her harsh command
That he should say the time is beautiful
Transfigured by her own possessing light
The sick man craves the impalpable night.
The author also uses personification in the line Mortality will speak the victor soon, and its

personification because mortality cannot actually speak.

The third poem I found from Allen Tale that I liked is called The Ancestors. This poem

starts off with focusing on a small child. Then expands a bit to discuss the childs ancestors and

the family line. Again, with the previous two poems, Tale uses rhyme scheme. Which seems to

be a reoccurring pattern in all his poems. He uses personification again in the line wind shivers

the door. Personification is more frequent in this poem than the other two that I have mentioned.

The author creates a voice in the poem where it is outside of the author just writing down his

thoughts.
 In the last book of poems, I had I found a few more poems that I enjoyed reading. One of

them is called Alba: Whose Muse by Frederick Eckman. This poem is about a man talking about

a woman who had left him without warning one night. He talks about the things that were

different after she was gone and that she had not come back for weeks now. In terms of literary

devices, Eckman uses stanzas to break up the poem into smaller chunks for easier reading. He

also uses rhythm and gives off a sort of negative atmosphere as he is discussing how he feels.

The following stanza shows and example the rhythm and atmosphere used in the poem.

To which I agree. The air

is stale,
The phonograph shut off
In disgust.

The second poem that I read in the last of my poem books that I really liked was also by

Frederick Eckman and was called Like in the Movies. This poem discusses different things that

you normally see in movies that where the speaker could see it occur in real life, outside of

movies. There is irony when the author write Lifes little problems always work out and when

he continues to write about these little problems including a friend who had cancer and ending

up shooting himself. The tone of the poem is very dark and the reader can tell when referring

back to the previous example about the friend with cancer and by reading the line when the

neighbor down the street becomes paralyzed. The poem can also symbolize that life is not always

fair to everyone and that people have to find a way around the obstacles that will be thrown

down in their path of life.

 This assignment helped open my eyes to a various type of poems. It also helped me spark

a new interest in listening to and reading new poems. This assignment was worth doing and I

would recommend it for future students.

 Works Cited

Andrews, Derrick. The Fear of Failure. Poemhunter, n.p., n.d.,

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-fear-of-failure/. Accessed 08 Feb. 2017.

B, Olivia. Demons of Darkness. Family Friend Poems, n.p., Sept. 2015,

http://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/demons-of-darkness. Accessed 08 Feb. 2017.

Eckman, Frederick. Alba: Whose Muse. Heartland, Poets of the Midwest. n.e. Northern

Illinois University Press. pp. 52-53.

Eckman, Frederick. Like in the Movies. Heartland, Poets of the Midwest. n.e. Northern Illinois

University Press. pp. 53.

Silverstein, Shel. Messy Room. A Light in the Attic, n.e., Harper Collins, 1981, pp. 35.

Silverstein, Shel. Superstitions. A Light in the Attic, n.e., Harper Collins, 1981, pp. 48.

Stormwolf, Alison. Lovers. Soul Awakening, n.p., n.d., http://www.soul-

awakening.com/poetry/p-love.htm. Accessed 08 Feb. 2017.

Tate, Allen. The Ancestors. Poems by Allen Tate, n.e., First Swallow Paperbooks, 1961, pp. 9.

Tate, Allen. Mother and Son. Poems by Allen Tate, n.e., First Swallow Paperbooks, 1961, pp.

46-47.

Tate, Allen. Shadow and Shade. Poems by Allen Tate, n.e., First Swallow Paperbooks, 1961,

pp. 134-135.