Original poem reprinted online here: "Eighth Air Force" by Randall Jarrell More information about the Poet: Randall Jarrell Cinquains with a couplet rhyme scheme at the end of each stanza. In the poem there's the continuous image of youth through the obvious symbol of "puppy," but what's intertwined with the youth is a sense of obvious violence as well. However, how do this images interact? "If, in an odd angle of the butment, / A puppy laps the water from a can / Of flowers, and the drunk sergeant shaving." So we're introduced to the setting -- there's flowers and puppies, and then there's a butment with a drunk sergeant shaving. Not necessarily violence, but there seems to be a foreshadow of something more, but, "Whistles O Paradiso! --shall I say that man / Is not as men have said: a wolf to man?" What's the most important part that's added here is the judgement call. Not from the speaker, but what the speake...
Formerly the RetailMFA, This is the Poetry Blog of Darrell Dela Cruz