Good Essay On Poetry Explication

The verse I have chosen for the analysis is “My Son, My Executioner” by Donald Hall (1990). Within the poem emotions and feelings of the parents are described when their first child is born. “My Son, My Executioner” contains rhythmicity of syllables which is aimed at conveying emotional content of the verse. The poem is written by the author with the usage of certain methods of impressing the reader: the lines in it are short and long which makes a rhythm due to which the poem is easy for understanding, reading and analyzing. There is an example below of short and long lines: “Sweet death, small son, our instrument / Of immortality” (lines 5-6); the author centers on the idea of experiencing new life period expressed though the parents’ emotions. The words “take” (line 2) and “body” (line 4) have to be accentuated by the reader, and the words “arms” and “warms” play an important role in creating rhythmic tone and stressed tint in the lines. The rhythmic composition of the Hall’s poem is easy to read as the words in lines in various places of the poem are accentuated in different syllables, for example, in the following example taken from the poem lines in the end are under the stress: “I take you in my arms / And whom my body warms” (lines 2, 4).
Also, lines carrying central idea of the poem that the parents are young but they still understand there appears a new life, their son, and they are going to be aging gradually from this moment, are realized by the author of the poem through meter which is one of components of rhythm: “We twenty-five and twenty-two / Who seemed to live forever / Observe enduring life in you / And start to die together” (lines 9-12). The ninth line of “My Son, My Executioner” is expressed by Donald Hall through iamb meter because the first words are not stressed while the second syllables are accentuated. Finally, the last lines of the poem (10-12) are expressed by the author in anapest meter where third syllables are stressed while the first two are not accentuated due to which the principal logical ideas are emphasized. Rhythm and meter are two essential strengths and tools of the author which help him realize his main idea conveying all emotional ups and downs together with tints in order to create an appropriate effect on a reader of a poem (Kiparsky, 1989).

Works Cited

Hall, Donald. "My Son, My Executioner." Old and New Poems. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1990. 19. Print.
Kiparsky, Paul. Rhythm and Meter. San Diego: Academic, 1989. Print.