Kiki Petrosino

Even though books are not people, they represent so much in our lives. Poetry allows authors to establish a relationship with things that might not normally go together. They can take a part of an object to represent the object as a whole. “Books” by Kiki Petrosino uses a unique structure, metaphors, and personification to establish her argument that books represent the fertility of woman during pregnancy. Capitalization of nouns that aren't normally capitalized can bring importance to things that might not be considered proper nouns. Poetry gives the author the freedom to manipulate the structure of a poem so they can emphasize different subjects. In this poem, Petrosino capitalizes the beginning letter of every work that isn't a connecting word such as “of, the, to is, etc.” Most of these words are nouns, but not proper nouns, so the capitalization of these words brings importance to every word. It also sets apart each word making it it's own subject. The different subjects are disconnected from each other and it is a little unsettling to the eye to look at.

Literary devices such as metaphors are used in poetry to symbolize one things for another. The book in this poem represents the beloved body of a woman who is expecting. The subject of the book is a metaphor for the body of a woman. The womb would be represented as the bulk of the book while the “Hinge of the Darker Door” represents the strong spine a pregnant woman has to have to take care of the burden of having a child. Another metaphor that is used in this poem is of a pear tree. In the Chinese culture, the pear tree is a symbol for femininity and is a sign of fertility. Since some of Kiki Petrosino's poems refer to a restaurant in a China city, it can be deducted that she also chose to refer to the pear tree being a symbol from Chinese