Elements of poetry discussed
Setting
Persona
Themes
Analysis
The poem is an expression of the dilemma. The speaker is a person whose world is conflicted, who is reexamining the world and trying to decide on what to do; whether to buy a ‘goddamn big car’ or to pay attention to the needs of the moment(Creely, 1991). The theme of the poem is the turmoil put on the world by the capitalistic nature of things, which puts the speaker in ‘darkness’.
The poem uses minimal words to put across its ideas but from the little spoken we learn a lot about the desperation that materialism has put the persona in. The speaker longs to run away from reality but does not see a clear way out since he lacks direction. The poem looks at the identity crisis that many people go through in life and examines the desperation that comes with it. The poem is set in the postmodern times where there is a lot of pressure to achieve much and the world is also materialistic in nature.
The style of the poem is based on spacing of lines that appear not to be organized in any particular manner. The poem also gives very minimal and vague descriptions which gives us nothing much to go by .These two approaches emphasize the lack of direction since the speaker doesn’t have a hold of the direction that his life should take, neither does he have much guidance on how he should proceed. The poem also uses dialogue in the first lines to indicate the conversations that go on in the society as people try to find themselves.
Creely’s poem is a reflection of postmodern America where people lack direction in life and many are driven by materialism.
References
Creely, R.(1991). I Know a Man by Robert Creeley : The Poetry Foundation. Poetryfoundation.org. Retrieved 2 February 2016, from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/171564
