Lesson 35

1. What imagery does Shapiro use in the first three lines to evoke sound and sight? How do these images become increasingly significant in the context of the entire poem?

- The first three lines the narrator says, are “Its quick soft silver bell beating, beating, / And down the dark one ruby flare / Pulsing out red light like and artery.” The first form of imagery is the soft silver bell that it beating. This is a form of sight imagery, as well as sound imagery in the beating (like a heart or a drum). Next, is a “dark one ruby flare,” which is also sight imagery. A ruby is big, red, and glowing. The “pulsing…red light like an artery,” serves great imagery, especially relating to the first line (of the beating sound; like the heart). These images become significant in the context of the entire poem because it sets up the setting of the poem.

2. On a literal level, what contextual significance do the following words and phrases have: mangled (line 9), “tolls once” (line11), “terrible cargo” (line 12), “rocking, slightly rocking” (line 13), “deranged and composed” (lines 15 and 16)?

- The word “mangled,” is used in line 9 with “Stretchers are laid out, the mangled lifted…” This line is said very casually. Mangled is used as a noun, not as a descriptive word, which actually makes it more horrific than if it was an adjective. Line 11 says, “Then the bell, breaking the hush, tolls once.” The significance this has is the word “toll.” An ambulance siren doesn’t “toll.” So this word is symbolizing the tolling of bells at a church steeple, showing there will be a funeral for the “mangled.” The next line exclaims, “And the ambulance with its terrible cargo.” The “terrible cargo,” refers to all of the people who were in the crash. But, “cargo” isn’t a word that describes humans, so this line is showing the fact that for many people dealing with a crash, the people are only seen as cargo. Line 13 exclaims, “Rocking, slightly rocking, moves away.” My interpretation of this line would be symbolic of the rocking of a cradle. Babies are rocked at the beginning of their lives and near the end of someone’s life, they must be nourished like a baby once again. The second stanza starts with, “We are deranged, walking among the cops / Who sweep glass and are large and composed.” These lines show a contrast between the cops and other people involved in the accident. For the cops, this accident is something they have seen before; something that is normal. For the people involved, they are in shock and deranged.

3. Analyze the metaphors in lines 3, 18, 22 and 29-30. What pattern do they create and why is it appropriate to the poem?

- Line 3 says, “Pulsing out red light like an artery.” This metaphor compares the red light to blood, pulsing, and pumping through an artery. Line 18 says, “One with a bucket douches ponds of blood.” Blood is being compared to ponds, obviously showing that there is a lot of it. In line 22 the narrator says, “Our throats were tight as tourniquets.” A tourniquet is a device used to stop bleeding by compressing a blood vessel. This metaphor is interesting because the people observing the crash were so shocked, their throats were very tight. It is ironic though because they are as tight as tourniquets, which were probably used for the victims of the crash. The last metaphor is found in lines 29-30 with “But we remain, touching a wound / That opens to our richest horror.” The metaphor compares the people’s horror to an open wound that will not stop bleeding. The metaphors create a pattern of references to death, or parts of the body that could be hurt. The first, is blood through an artery, the second, a lot of blood, the third, a tourniquet, and the fourth an open, bleeding wound. This is appropriate for the poem because it is about an Auto Wreck that has mangled and hurt people and that insinuates death.

4. What is added to the theme of the poem by the metaphors in lines 20-21 and the simile in 24-27?

- The theme of this poem is that life is important and significant and a small, little moment, can change everything. Lines 20-21 exclaim, “One hangs lanterns on the wrecks that cling, / Empty husks of locusts, to iron poles.” This metaphor is comparing the lanterns on the car wreck to a husk of a locust. This relates to the theme because if someone were to see a husk of a locust, it would be passed by, just as the policemen clear things up without emotion. That one small event is almost insignificant; but can kill someone. Lines 24-27 say, “Like convalescents intimate and gauche, / We speak through the sickly smiles and warn / With the stubborn saw of common sense, / The grim joke and the banal resolution.” The observers of the accident are compared to “convalescents” because they are slowly recovering from what they have seen in the accident. They speak through “sickly smiles,” showing that they are sickened by the events they have just witnessed. The observers do things and feel things as if they were the actual victims of the accident. They realize, at this moment, how precious life can be and how this one event has taken people’s lives.