Why Are Your Poem's So Dark? By Linda Pastan

"Why Are Your Poem 's So Dark?" written by Linda Pastan, answers the question of why poet 's always seem to write about the darkness of the world. Pastan 's purpose is to stand up for the poets who are criticized for writing dark poems. She wants to let people know that poets write about the reality of the world, with all the injustices that taken place in the world. The world is a dark place, so choose poets write about what they see in the world. In the first two lines of the poem the speaker established his or her tone, and justifies why poet 's write in such gloomy manner. The first two lines of the poem asks, "Isn 't the moon dark too, most of the time?" (line 1-2). This question prepares the readers to expect an argument to come from

However, the rhetorical question that immediately follows the title, "Isn 't the moon dark too, most of the time?" presents a different story; turning the attention back onto the reader (lines 1-2). Also in the seventh stanza when the speaker states yet another rhetorical question, "Why are you sad so often?" the reader will start question, why they were even pondering, why poems were so dark (line 14). Pastan does this in order to make her theme stand out, the reason poems are so dark is due to the fact that poets write about the world, which happens to be a dark place. The theme is also supported by the structure of the poem as well. Pastan 's poem is a short 16 line poem, organized into 8 couplets, this structure causes Pastan 's sentences to be cut up into short telegraphic lines with no more than five words to each line, "Ask the moon. Ask what it has witnessed" (lines 15-16). These coupled lines are quick, sharpe and to the point, drawing attentions to Pastan 's message: poets do not intentionally write about dark phenomenons, they just see dark events in the world and feel the need to write about

The harsh yet simple words are honest and conversational, supporting the idea that the poem is an opinion argued, rather than a creative piece written for pleasure. Another support Pastan gives, is the moon, as a symbol of the witnesses to a tragedy. In her poem Pastan states, "Ask the moon. Ask what it has witnessed," the moon is the symbol of the night and the terrible tragedies the world to seen, from the to Holocaust to 9/11 (lines 15-16). This symbol in important as Pastan points out the darkness of the world, and the view in which poets see the