Analysis Of Edward Hirsch's Poem Execution

Cancer has a way of looming over the heads of those diagnosed with it, thusly affecting every aspect of their lives and reminding them almost constantly of the death they are nearly certain to face because of it. The same holds true for the football coach illustrated in Edward Hirsch’s poem, “Execution.” The speaker demonstrates this through his description of the coach, directly comparing football-related terms to his cancer. This surfaces a well-debated question: does the author use football to create an additional, figurative meaning to the poem? A superficial reader might assume that the sole focus of this poem is simply the speaker’s retelling of his memories as a young football player, but in actuality football is also used to represent cancer and how it killed the speaker's coach. …show more content…
In the poem, the first mention of the word ‘execution’ represents the focus the speaker’s football coach wanted to instill in his players. The speaker emphasizes that ‘execution’ was the coach’s “favorite word” and that it was “underlined in the upper right-hand corner of things,” with “things” referring to the papers he used to outline the plays he wanted his team to practice. In attempt to improve their execution of these plays, the coach forced “punishing drills” and extra practices upon his team. The coach knew that even if his team members learned all of the plays necessary for adequate preparation, it all came down to how well they carried out these plays, or, in other words, their execution of the plays. Taken in a literal sense, one would claim that the speaker is describing his team, his coach, and the overall experience he recalls from being on the