Poetic Devices Linked to Talk: Repetition

Unlike prose, poetry is made out of talk, the effects of talk.

Repetition: something said just once carries the expected effect of the word; said twice, doubles the effect. But, as in this excerpt from Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach, say it more than twice . . .

. . . the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain . . .

Or in a poem about my son: "Father John at 46."

Steady, steady as he goes in storm and calm,
Steady when the wind suddenly shifts,
and waves drop and heave. This has been shifted from the line before
Steady when the leaden sky lowers
and the wind spits in his face.
Steady and still plowing with the sea rippling,
sun dancing on the water.
Steady at the helm of the giant ship
called marriage . . .

Lists, a Longer Form of Repetition



Just because they are a kind of repetition, lists call attention to themselves, add effect.

For Life
Life is not what you hoped . . .
Life is the cut to the quick.
Your Irish Setter found dead . . .
Your wife, the night you said she could leave . . .
The flutist styling upon your heart/the departure. . .
Life is not the occasional sickness . . .
Life is not the middle of the storm—crisis . . .
Life . . .is giving up your current passion
Life is knowing, finally
that no one will come to save . . .

Therapist
I didn’t expect to leave week after week
with another rock laid into the foundation,
another strip of silver backing the mirror.
I expected trips to the cellar,
cobwebs and black widows,
beams rotting from seepage,
sewer pipes backed up.
Expected to be stung,
to replace timbers
with the weight of the house on my back,
to scoop crap. . . .

Repetition, even in the form of lists, powerfully presents a growing Feeling. And feeling is what poetry is all about.