Michael Symmons Roberts: Poems Literary Elements

“Mapping the Genome” is told from the perspective of a third person subjective point of view.

The poems have no form and meter as they are composed using free verse.

Towards the middle of the poem “Mapping the Genome”, the narrator describes a violent sandstorm hitting the hotel where the person he was addressing was staying. The sandstorm is so violent it reduced the visibility completely and the man inside the hotel becomes a prisoner. The sandstorm is used here as a metaphor, representing all those elements which may make a person reluctant to accept scientific facts and their truth.

We find an alliteration in the poem “Nativity Scene in Bullet-Time” in the line “green, red, gold of roman-candle arcs and rocket seed-heads”.

An ironic element is found in the poem “Nativity Scene in Bullet-Time” where the narrator claims he wants time to move as fast as possible. Ironically, for him the time stops at midnight and it becomes harder for him to continue moving forward.

“Mapping the Genome” is a meditative and scientific poem.

The action described in “Mapping the Genome” takes place on a highway during a short period of time, most likely a few seconds.

The tone used in “Mapping the Genome” is a neutral and highly clinical one.

The protagonists in “Nativity Scene in Bullet-Time” are those who are willing to move into the future and the antagonists are those who are unwilling to give up on the past.

The major conflict in “Nativity Scene in Bullet-Time” is between the past and the present.

The poem “Nativity Scene in Bullet-Time” reaches its climax when time freezes for the narrator at midnight, when a new year starts.

The term “bullet” which appears in the title of the poem “Nativity Scene in Bullet-Time” foreshadows the rapid pace in which the events in the poem will go forward.

N/A

Through the simple description the narrator offers on the way a genome can be mapped in the poem “Mapping the Genome”, the narrator alludes to the idea that science is not something which is so difficult it is out of this world, but rather that those facts are not presented in a clear and easy way for everyone to understand.

The term “midnight” is used in the poem “Nativity Scene in Bullet-Time” as a general term to make reference to the moment when a person realizes they have to move into the future and they have to move on.

We find a personification in the poem “Mapping the Genome” in the line “the human heart still runs”.

We have a hyperbole in the line “A self-appointed prophet in a shirt and tiegapes, fish-like, caught halfway through a lie” in the poem “Nativity Scene in Bullet-Time”.

We have an onomatopoeia in the poem “Mapping the Genome” in the line “tidy faded rooms with TVs blaring on”.