Analysis of poem #20
David Plantinga 1972 (Sherbrooke)
For balls to bounce is very rude,
Unless they dropped. Ascendancy
Is boldness we don’t like to see.
And roundness really is quite lewd.
For spheres, directions are the same,
And favoring the vertical
Is impudent in a mere ball.
A proper toy should be more tame.
| Scheme | ABBACDEC |
|---|---|
| Poetic Form | |
| Metre | 11111101 01110100 11011111 0110111 11010101 01000100 110011 01011111 |
| Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
| Characters | 267 |
| Words | 47 |
| Sentences | 5 |
| Stanzas | 1 |
| Stanza Lengths | 8 |
| Lines Amount | 8 |
| Letters per line (avg) | 26 |
| Words per line (avg) | 6 |
| Letters per stanza (avg) | 206 |
| Words per stanza (avg) | 48 |
About this poem
I got the idea for this one from Kafka’s short story Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor. Those weird bouncing balls really freak me out, like something out of The Twilight Zone. I’ve always thought this story was one of his best and under-appreciated. I’ve never been able to find much critical literature that mentions it.
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"poem #20" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 30 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/106059/poem-%2320>.
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