Maura Dooley: Poetry Literary Elements

The poem “Cleaning Jim Dine’s Heart” is told from the perspective of a third person objective narrator.

The poem “Elevator” is written in an iambic pentameter form.

In the poem “Raft of Desires” the narrator describes a small ship sailing away into the night. The ship is used in this poem as a metaphor and represents the way in which death takes away from a person everything that they hold dear to.

We find an alliteration in the poem “Transit” in the line “stretch your sexy span across the city”.

We find an ironic element in the poem “Elevator” where the narrator, despite wanting to talk with the person inside the elevator and knowing nothing will happen to her, still decides to keep silent and then criticize herself later for not having the courage to speak up.

The poem “Remark” is a meditative poem on the nature of a relationship between two people.

The action described in “Cleaning Jim Dine’s Heart” takes place on a hill during a summer afternoon.

The tone used in the poem “Remark” is one filled with regret and longing.

The protagonist in “Mind the Gap” is the person who tries to live his life to the fullest despite having to experience constant problems while the antagonist is the person who tries to escape his problems to whatever means he can think of.

The major conflict in the poem “Elevator” is between the narrator’s desire to speak with the other person in the elevator and the fear of being judged.

The poem “Freight” reaches its climax when the narrator realizes that the lover does not care about her as much as she cares about him.

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In the poem “Elevator” the narrator suggests that the other person inside the elevator has no idea about their life and the more meaningful things in one’s life. This is proven to be an understatement at the end of the poem when the other character makes the narrator think about their purpose in life.

One of the main allusions in the poem “Remark” is the idea that at times, relationships can cause more pain than happiness. Still, despite this, the narrator claims no one is willing to leave a relationship, choosing to suffer rather than be alone.

The term “tool” is used in the poem “Freight” as a general term through which the narrator makes reference to the sacrifices a person has to make in order to be loved and accepted.

The line “little dancing bones,” in the poem “Freight” contains a personification.

The line “The Quays are maggoty with us” in the poem “1847” contains a hyperbole.

We find an onomatopoeia in the line “a glass and a dark song” in the poem “Raft of Desires”.