Eating Poetry Analysis

Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.

The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.

I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

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Mark Strand’s Eating Poetry is a great poem about the character’s love for poetry. Each stanza works together to create a cohesive poem that helps put everything together. In the first stanza, Strand paints a picture of a crazy looking man with ink running down the corners of his mouth. The first line describes the ink as it ‘runs’ down his mouth. This makes a reader think that he was hungrily eating the poetry; he couldn’t get enough of it. The next two lines are just plain and simple, he has been eating poetry and he is really enjoying it.
The next three lines bring us to a ‘normal’ character in the story. Right now, this librarian represents the reader, just as we can’t believe what we are reading, the librarian can’t believe what she is seeing. This stanza brings some reality into the poem; it also brings opposition. The first stanza’s character was very happy while the second stanza’s character seems to be upset.
In the third stanza, the atmosphere changes. Because the precious poems are gone, either because they are all eaten up or maybe they have disappeared, ‘the light is dim.’ This seems to cause chaos, without the poems for the man to eat order can’t be held. The chaos can be displayed in the next few lines with the description of the dogs. The diction in this stanza just screams craziness, ‘eyeballs roll’, ‘burn’, ‘poor’, ‘stamp’, and ‘weep.’ All of these words help contribute to the fact that without the poetry, everything gets crazy.
The last two stanzas show confusion and joy. The man in the story ends up licking the librarian’s hand because apparently he has turned into a dog. This scares the shit out of the librarian because she doesn’t know how to react to a man licking her hand like a dog would in her library. In the final stanza, the voice of the poem shares that he is a new man. This could mean that because of his transformation, he is now a ‘man’ dog. Just like when he was in human form, he ate poetry messily just like a dog would eat food. Everything is mixed around in Eating Poetry by Mark Strand.

| Posted on 2009-11-19 | by a guest

.: :.

No, I think it's just a bizarre metaphor that depicts his love for poetry and his mad desperation to have more of it.

| Posted on 2009-10-27 | by a guest

.: :.

At first, I thought maybe he narrator was a dog, but then I found out it is actually a man. A rather bizarre man. My thinking says that the bizarre man has literally eaten the poetry and become mercury poisoned. You see, mercury is used in most printing inks, and when the ink gets into the bloodstream, the mercury becomes seperated from it. Therefore, the mercury is more concentrated on its own and may make the person who has ingested it act very, very odd. That is my thinking. Anyone else?

| Posted on 2009-05-12 | by a guest

.: :.

At first, I thought maybe he narrator was a dog, but then I found out it is actually a man. A rather bizarre man. My thinking says that the bizarre man has literally eaten the poetry and become mercury poisoned. You see, mercury is used in most printing inks, and when the ink gets into the bloodstream, the mercury becomes seperated from it. Therefore, the mercury is more concentrated on its own and may make the person who has ingested it act very, very odd. That is my thinking. Anyone else?

| Posted on 2009-05-12 | by a guest