Conrad Aiken was the US Poet Laureate from 1950-1952. He was the first poet laureate to be selected for two years. The poems that were selected were “Music,” “Summer,” “The Grasshopper,” and “Exile.” “Music” was chosen to learn about Aiken’s views of instrumental sounds. “Summer” was chosen because the first two words “Absolute zero” (1) and later in the first stanza “the rock explodes, the planet dies” (3). These words hook the reader and prompt one to continue reading. “The Grasshopper” was chosen for its unique pattern of where the words and lines were placed. The placement of the words mimic the shape of the grasshopper violin legs. “Exile” was chosen due to an exciting title and a lack of remaining time to further study the poems
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“Expounding hope propounding yearning” (15) shows negativity and extremely high level vocabulary. Aiken also uses alliteration “razor rasps” (5) that is important because the alliteration is a repetition of hard sounds that show anger and brutality of the winter that he is describing. This is also part of the consonance of the soft s sound that makes the winter snake-like and evil. “... rasps across the face / and in the glass our fleeting race” (5-6). The use of five stanzas of rhyming couplets in this poem, along with the vague diction, leaves the poem sounding like an ancient prophecy, mystical and fear-inducing. “Or only learning at zero’s gate / like summer’s locust the final hate” (17-18). Verbal irony can be found in this poem in the title itself, because the title implies that the poem will be about warmth and life, when in reality it is about the cold dead winter. Figurative language, more specifically personification, is used often in this poem. For example, “thunder tries to think” (8). Thunder is an inanimate noun that cannot truly think and Conrad Aiken is giving it a human characteristic. Symbols can also be found in this poem. One symbol is the locust. At the beginning of the poem, when summer is about to begin, Aiken writes “the locust sings” (1). Then, at the end of the poem, the locust dies as winter begins. In line 3, when Aiken writes “the rock explodes, the planet dies” (3) he is using imagery to reveal his hatred for the season. As noted, there was a lot of thought put into the poem “Summer” as Aiken uses literary devices to emphasize his
“Expounding hope propounding yearning” (15) shows negativity and extremely high level vocabulary. Aiken also uses alliteration “razor rasps” (5) that is important because the alliteration is a repetition of hard sounds that show anger and brutality of the winter that he is describing. This is also part of the consonance of the soft s sound that makes the winter snake-like and evil. “... rasps across the face / and in the glass our fleeting race” (5-6). The use of five stanzas of rhyming couplets in this poem, along with the vague diction, leaves the poem sounding like an ancient prophecy, mystical and fear-inducing. “Or only learning at zero’s gate / like summer’s locust the final hate” (17-18). Verbal irony can be found in this poem in the title itself, because the title implies that the poem will be about warmth and life, when in reality it is about the cold dead winter. Figurative language, more specifically personification, is used often in this poem. For example, “thunder tries to think” (8). Thunder is an inanimate noun that cannot truly think and Conrad Aiken is giving it a human characteristic. Symbols can also be found in this poem. One symbol is the locust. At the beginning of the poem, when summer is about to begin, Aiken writes “the locust sings” (1). Then, at the end of the poem, the locust dies as winter begins. In line 3, when Aiken writes “the rock explodes, the planet dies” (3) he is using imagery to reveal his hatred for the season. As noted, there was a lot of thought put into the poem “Summer” as Aiken uses literary devices to emphasize his