What Does Ground Swell Mean

“The most important thing is to enjoy your life, to be happy, is all that matters.” Audrey Hepburn said this, and this quote really reminds me of the poem “Ground Swell” because it talks about how you need to be happy. “Ground Swell” conveys the message that the author is not happy about his life and then he realizes that he should be happy, because that matters. The author of “Ground Swell,” Mark Jarman, wrote this poem to write about his vividest life. Although he describes his life as “colorless as salt,” he chooses to tell his story because it was his ground swell. The poem tells the story of how one day when the author was sixteen, an older boy called his name without scorn. This made him reconsider his worth, and feel special because an older boy had called his name. Later, readers find out that the older boy was a Vietnam veteran and he died in the war, because his name was carved on the black wall in Washington and he came home in a bag. Mark Jarman concludes by stating that he could write about a lot of other things, but he must start where things began to happen, his ground swell. “Ground Swell” discusses the ideas of reality and how it may not be the most interesting, but it’s the basis of everything. Mark Jarman achieves these ideas through the use of rhetorical …show more content…
He uses many rhetorical questions such as “Is that all I have to write about?” and “Why would i want to write about it?” The usage of these questions make the readers wonder the same things as the author, which connects the reader sand the author. Connecting the reader and the author can help the reader form a better visual of the poem itself, and can also help the reader understand the author’s feelings about the story he or she is telling. These questions help the reader understand that Mark Jarman didn’t want to write about his ground swell and came upon a time where he realized his life was not very amusing or