Speaker or Narrator, and Point of View
first-person speaker
Form and Meter
A sort of sonnet with one nine-line stanza and one five-line stanza, both in free verse with heavy enjambment
Metaphors and Similes
"The dark birds of history" are a metaphor for structural forces that affect many lives, with the "beaks and pinions" of these birds as their damaging effects.
Alliteration and Assonance
"we were trying to live a personal life," alliteration of "w" and "l"
Irony
The second stanza has a sonnet's "turn": whereas the first stanza narrates an obsession with the personal, the second stanza shows its larger effects. This can be considered a form of verbal irony.
Genre
lyric poem
Setting
Tone
mournful, self-criticial
