Tuesday, November 17, 2015

"Flatland" by Sam Cook

This poem begins with the poet asking the audience to remember something, which sets the remembered/story-like tone for the rest of the poem. This poem then performs a beautiful slow crescendo into sound and fury and violence--using both volume and using violent words to describe sound we reach this crescendo and abruptly stop as the character of the story transforms and resolves a conflict. This winds itself down from the  metaphor of being a soldier and the poet concludes with reminding us of his role in the story--a bystander--and rages at his own passiveness, creating a smaller but no less powerful crescendo. The poem ends on a high note, with the poet shouting the very last lines as his voice breaks with the volume and the passion with which he's speaking.

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