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Fear, a Prey to Survival

Karl Constantine FOLKES 1935 (Portland)

Tanka
Fear as messenger.
Enemy of lust for life.
How it defeats life.
How it shows no decency.
Respects no laws, conventions.

Seeks your weakest spot.
Pursues it with greatest ease.
Blinding your vision.
And your survival instincts.
A prey to your existence.

About this poem

“Life of Pi” is a Canadian published philosophical novel by Yann Martel, published in 2001, with Piscine Molitor “Pi” Patel, a Tamil Indian boy, as protagonist, who explores and ponders on the meaning of life, and on issues of spirituality and metaphysics. This Tamil boy is a child metaphysician. “Life of Pi” is a composition of axiomatic statements about life and human behavior. This two-stanza Tanka poem conveys some of Martel’s sentiments about fear, and how it is a deadly adversary of human existence and the impetus for human survival.  

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Written on April 19, 2022

Submitted by karlcfolkes on April 19, 2022

Modified on March 05, 2023

15 sec read
353

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAAXX XXXXX
Closest metre Iambic trimeter
Characters 253
Words 52
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 5, 5
Full analysis for Fear, a Prey to Survival »

Karl Constantine FOLKES

Retired educator of Jamaican ancestry with a lifelong interest in composing poetry dealing particularly with the metaphysics of self-reflection; completed a dissertation in Children’s Literature in 1995 at New York University entitled: An Analysis of Wilhelm Grimm’s “Dear Mili” Employing Von Franzian Methodological Processes. The subject of the dissertation concerned the process of Individuation. more…

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    "Fear, a Prey to Survival" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2023. Web. 7 Jun 2023. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/125170/fear,-a-prey-to-survival>.

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