Essay \"Poetry Technique Reflection\" - Grade A PDF

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Poetry Technique Reflection...

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MacKenzie Mitchell Mark Keats English 2351 July 18, 2016

Poetry Technique Reflection

Many poets are good poets because of not only the stories and topics they tell in their poems, but also because of the technique they put into their poems. Techniques chosen such as construction of sentences, fragment, phrases, and words. The choice of diction, imagery, plot, and so on, that the poet that the poet CHOOSES to incorporate into their works. Two works of poetry that display this well is “Pantoum of the Great Depression” by Donald Justice and “Letter beginnings With Two Lines From Czelsaw Milosz” by Matthew Olzmann. I will analyze not only what the poems are talking about, but also the techniques within the poem that apply more meaning into the poem than is seen at first glance.

In the Pantoum poem, Pantoum of the Great Depression by Donald Justice, the poet talks about the great depression, but it’s not solely the words that tell this story. Instead, the poet incorporates techniques such as word choice and sentence format to show this to the reader. By adding commas to the poem he adds extra layers to the poem that forces slow paced reading when one might want to read fast. In doing so, it creates a slow speed in the poem, which shows to the reader that there wasn’t much to

do during the great depression, especially if one was poor. He chooses words that are long and drawn out that also carry an emotion of what it was like to go through the great depression. In addition to his use of diction, he also greats an idea in the readers mind by not providing much detail throughout the poem to symbolize that the victims of the great depression didn’t let the details of their sorrows consume them otherwise it would have made things worse for them. For example, “we managed” shows that they did what they had to do and had their “usual celebrations” and their “usual sorrows”. This shows the people in Justice’s poem, went about their daily routines and didn’t focus on the fact that things weren’t as they wanted them to be.

Another good example of poetry that uses its technique to explain the meaning within his works is Matthew Olzmann’s “Letter beginnings With Two Lines From Czelsaw Milosz”. This poem is about the numerous accounts of shootings that happens around the world. Olzmann’s poem is a realistic poem in terms of the subject matter. He references Detroit and it’s reputation for having a high crime rate and his reference to a movie theater shooting where innocent lives were taken. His specific choice of words shows the facts that bullets don’t choose to “aim” at anybody. Even though his poem was written in January earlier this year, it is more relevant today than when he wrote it with all the senseless shootings going on in the world in the past month or so. The personification of the gun and bullet when he says “the bullet doesn’t care about ‘aim’” shows the reader how it’s not the weapon itself, but the fact that people are the ones shooting innocent people. His sentence structure when he says “the innocent and the innocent” shows his idea that everyone is innocent

and no one should be killed. Throughout these poems both poets uses selective word choice, sentence structure, and other techniques of writing to convey their messages in their poems. This makes them such great poets....