Simon Ortiz: Poetry Literary Elements

The majority of the poems are written from the perspective of a third-person objective point of view.

The poems are written in a free verse form.

In the poem "Busted Boy", alcohol is used as a metaphor for adulthood and for misery.

We have an alliteration in the poem "Blind Curse" in the line "Words fly away, tumbling invisibly".

We find an ironic idea in the poem "Blind Curse" when the narrator describes how many people continue to get involved in a large range of actions even though they do not.

The poems analyzed are meditative poems.

The action described in "Blind Curse" takes place on the open road in rural America.

The tone used in the poems is a neutral one.

The protagonist in "Busted Boy" is the young boy who is still innocent and the antagonists are the older boys smelling of alcohol.

The main conflict in "Culture and the Universe" is between knowledge and the lack of it.

The poem "Busted Boy" reaches its climax when the small boy gets off the bus.

The poem "Culture and the Universe" starts with the narrator praising the sky and its immense vastness. This foreshadows the later instances in which the narrator will present the human being as an insignificant creature.

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The main allusion we find in the poem "Blind Curse" is the idea that the lives of an individual person means nothing when compared with the whole of humanity.

The bus is used in the poem "Busted Boy" as a general term to make reference to the passing of time.

We have a personification in "Culture and the Universe" in the line "the canyons journey towards us".

We have a hyperbole in "Busted Boy" in the line "when two burly men, one in a neat leather jacket both neat and stern".

We have an onomatopoeia in the poem "Blind Curse" in the line "Churning through the storm, heedless".