Carolyn Forche: Poems Literary Elements

The poems are told from a first person subjective point of view.

Most of the poems do not have a set form and meter because they are written in a modernist way.

When the colonel shows his guests the severed ears he collected in the poem ‘’The Colonel’’, the narrator compares them to dry peaches, a peculiar comparison. The reason why the narrator compared the ears with dry peaches is to normalize the event and to take away from the severity of the action.

We find alliteration in the poem "The Boatman’’ in the lines "City called ‘mother of the poor’ surrounded by fields of cotton and millet’’.

In the poem entitled "The Boatman’’, the narrator notes ironically that even though the city she left was called ‘’mother of the poor’’ the people living inside the city had everything they wanted and had enough resources to survive.

Most of the poems are narrative poems.

The action of the poem "The Colonel’’ takes place in the dining room of the colonel and the poem "The Boatman’’ takes place in the middle of the sea.

The poems are written in a tragic tone.

The protagonist in the poem entitled "The Colonel’’ is the narrator and the antagonist is the colonel.

The major conflict in the poem "The boatman’’ is between the refugees and the world trying to kill them.

The poem "The colonel’’ reaches its climax when the Colonel comes into the room with a bag of severed ears.

In the beginning of the poem "The Colonel’’ the narrator looks for ways she can escape the house and also for elements she can use as weapons. These elements foreshadow the grim discovery of the severed ears.

When the narrator talks about leaving her country in the poem "The boatman’’, she claims how the people in charge tried to convince them to go. She claimed however that they could not leave, because there was no where they could go and be accepted. Thus, the affirmation that they could leave is an understatement.

In the poem entitled "The boatman’’ the narrator alludes to the fact that leaving her country did not meant safety. The narrator calls her former home a camp she had to leave for another camp. This suggests that life as a refuge was just as dangerous as the life a person living inside a country torn by war had to endure and that the life of a refugee was a dangerous and perilous one.

The term "clouds’’ is used in the poem entitled "The boatman’’ as a general term to make reference to the various soldiers from various countries flying over the city and bombing it, killing many civilians who lived there.

We find personification in the line "The wind along the prison, cautious’’, in the poem ‘’The Visitor’’.

We find a hyperbole in the line "It is the sound of scythes arcing in wheat,/the ache of some field song in Salvador.’’

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