Analyzing John Stein's 'Prose Poem'

In the article “Prose Poem”, Stein describes her relationship with the person she is following and her affection towards them. Using words like: “one”, “whom”, “were”, “following”, and “working” exemplifies the tone throughout the entire piece. The reason for doing so is perhaps to exaggerate the deep feelings she carries for a particular person. Seemingly, she is using repetition in order to produce spin on the characters negative or positive impression and her as well as her thoughts towards the subject. Stein starts off the poem, “One who some were certainly following was one who was completely charming.” She continues to repeat this phrase a couple more times which can imply that she was most likely attracted to this character. As she …show more content…
“This one had been one whom some were following and this one was one whom some were following.” Stein starts to repeating the word ‘working’ to suggest that the person to whom she was following was always working. “This one was certainly working and working was something this one was certain this one would be doing and this one was doing that thing, this one was working.” But she changes the certainty of him doing his work to make him seem like he doesn’t always do it. Stein seems to be having a conflict between herself and him, to make her to have a negative tension towards his work. “This one did have something having meaning that did come out of him. He always did have something come out of him.” The use of the word ‘did’ suggests that her view of his work changed, saying that his work ‘did’ have meaning, it ‘did’ have something coming from him. Her outlook on his work seems more negative than what it was in the beginning. “He did have some following. They were always following him. Some were certainly following him.” She acknowledges that even though she views him not to be the same, to “not ever completely working”, he still maintains a following from other