"The Bad Young Man" and Other Poems Literary Elements

The speaker of the poems is often Baxter himself, recounting old memories.

This varies between poems. In Farmhand, he uses five stanzas split into quatrains. The stanzas are connected by punctuation rather than meter or rhyme.

Baxter uses a metaphor and a simile to describe the "easter of life" in East Coast Journey: "with teeth of obsidian and hair like help."

In the poem To a Print of Queen Victoria, Baxter uses alliteration: "bloody bandaged ghost rising."

In Wild Bees, Baxter refers to a "safe Ophelia drifting in a rented boat," which is ironic as the real Ophelia killed herself by drowning.

20th Century poetry

The poem At Days Bay is set on a beach.

At Days Bay has a reflective and contemplative tone.

In Wild Bees, the protagonist and antagonist are unclear in the battle between men and bees.

In Wild Bees, the main conflict is the fight between the group of friends and the bees for the honey.

At Days Bay reaches a climax when the speaker reflects on his adolescence.

The use of the word "father" in At Days Bay foreshadows the religious themes later in the poem.

Calling his adolescent self "sad" seems to be an understatement, as it is suggested the speaker had been suicidal in At Days Bay.

There are many religious allusions in the poem Autumn Testament, including references to the life and death of Jesus.

"Father" is used as a metonym for God in Baxter's poems.

The waves are personified in At Days Bay.

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