Eating Poetry Literary Elements

The poem is entirely told from the perspective of the poem-eating first-person narrator

The poem consists of 6 stanzas of 3 lines each, with no consistent meter. There is no consistent rhyme scheme; only infrequent rhyming couplets (stanza 5, line 13 and 14; stanza 6, line 17 and 18)

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Assonance:
l. 3: “believe what she sees”
l. 12: “feet and weep”

Alliteration:
l. 11: “blond legs bum like brush”

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Surreal, abstract poem

The presence of books and a librarian suggests that the poem takes place in a library. The narrator states to have been eating poetry until the light is dim, suggesting that the time is close to evening.

The tone of the poem is dark, confusing and appearing to be somewhat dangerous, portrayed mainly with the unsettled and frightened reactions of the librarian. The narrator behaves very oddly, taking pleasure in literally consuming (and thus destroying) poetry and scaring the librarian by making her scream.

The poem-eating narrator serves both as the protagonist and antagonist of the poem. While he retells the events from his point of view and the reader experiences the action from his perspective, his behavior and treatment of the librarian is brazenly villainous and the poem ends with the narrator transforming into an animal-like state.

The major conflict in the poem is between the narrator and the librarian. As librarian, she is in charge of the library’s content, which the narrator is willfully destroying. When the seemingly unsettled and frightened librarian attempts to confront the narrator, he, in an even odder behavior, licks her hand and makes her scream. The poem ends with the narrator snarling at the librarian, displaying an even more hostile attitude than before.

The climax of the poems happens in line 14, when the narrator is licking the librarian’s hand.
Up until this point, the narrator has been eating poetry, but in this moment he seems to fully transform into a new, more animalistic being, embracing this new side of himself.

In the same sense it is the moment when the librarian’s underlying fear culminates in a scream after the narrator’s unexpected and un-welcomed first touch between the two. This moment changes both their relationship and the narrator’s self.

In the first stanza, the narrator expresses happiness about consuming poetry, which is a foreshadowing to him fully accepting this darker side of him later in the poem.

The second stanza slightly foreshadows the librarian’s fear and puts a focus on her hands (l. 6), which will later get licked.

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Synecdoche:
l. 5: "Her eyes are sad"

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l. 2: "There is no happiness like mine."

l. 12: "stamp" & "weep"
l. 17: "snarl" & "bark"