What You Are Do Now Poem Analysis

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“Poetry tries to get at the emotions of situations. It's the most direct form of communication we’ve got.” (Gary Hyland) Poetry is our most direct form of communication because it attacks emotions to get its message across, author to poem, and poem to reader with figurative language of hyperboles, similes and personification. Tugging at heartstrings of emotions to connect the reader to its passages. “Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins and “What You Are Doing Now” by Gary Hyland, are two “poem on poetry” poems written in free verse using those literary devices.

In “Introduction to Poetry”, Collins uses hyperboles to emphasize his statement which overly stress the point to create a humorous effect which can help convey “what's behind the poem”. Then leading to an insight as with most of Billy Collins poems, with amusing content but sheds light …show more content…

Gary Hyland wrote “What You Are Doing Now” with a conversational approach, allowing the reader to interact with the poem. There’s this simile in line 31, “Hey it’s like football” where Hyland places a parallel between football, a people’s sport (or, at least, football’s popular in Saskatchewan), and poetry, his own love and passion. This simile infers with everyday life to produce a realistic image to appear relevant, conveying the speaker’s feelings that poetry is just as familiar as football. Then in line 34 "he passes" a usage of personification to give the poem expression so then the reader may project their emotions onto inanimate objects; no longer being referred to “it” but “he” like a person. The poem grew with greater importance to be addressed as a person and calling the reader to “you ” it’s as if two people were talking; similes and personification helped create a conversation between reader and poem and towards the idea that poems can just be as enjoyable as

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