Unit 5: Poetry II

The speaker's use of the second person ("you") throughout the poem creates the effect of

The metaphor of aging as editorial revision ("who edited the draft of you / without permission") suggests that

The simile "the way a tide withdraws / before anyone thinks to mark the sand" contributes to the poem's theme by emphasizing

The poem uses the extended metaphor of translation to explore

The phrase "this particular shade of Tuesday loneliness" achieves its effect primarily through

The poem's extended comparison of the father to a tree suggests that his strength is characterized by

The phrase "the slow artillery / of mortgage payments and school fees" uses metaphor to reframe domestic financial pressures as

The poem's final image — "teaching your shadow / to walk without you" — is best interpreted as a metaphor for

The observation that children "spend their twenties / trying to forget / and their thirties / trying to remember" suggests that children's relationship to their upbringing

The speaker's statement "I have outlived / several versions of myself" introduces a theme of

The primary subject of this poem is

A conceit is an extended metaphor that:

Assonance creates:

A speaker's tone in a poem is revealed through:

Paradox in poetry functions by:

Hyperbole is:

The repetition of "still" in lines 5 and 8 creates an effect of

The opening simile comparing the dock to "a sentence left unfinished" establishes a central theme of

The enjambment between lines 2 and 3 most significantly contributes to the poem's meaning by