People Etcetera by Elma Mitchell

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Stanza 1

  • 'People' - repetition -> anaphora (repetition at start of each stanza)
  • About a fat person
  • 'Happy' - metaphor, personification
  • 'Like a bowl of porridge' - simile
  • Sense of touch
  • 4 lines
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Stanza 2

  • 'like birds' - simile for comparison
  • 'birds', 'words' - rhyming couplet
  • 'pigeons.' - enjambement
  • Sense of sight
  • 5 lines
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Stanza 3

  • 'smell', 'Chanel' - rhyming couplet
  • 'Leathery, heathery' - rhyme
  • 'Leathery, heathery, culinary or Chanel' - asyndetic list
  • Sense of smell
  • 4 lines
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Stanza 4

  • 'Crisp and soft and tepid' - syndetic list
  • 'Acrid as truth' - simile, acrid: hard to swallow -> contradicts the previous statements, truth is harsh, demonstrates thhat people are different
  • Sense of taste
  • 5 lines
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Stanza 5

  • 'Hand following hand' - repetition -> emphasis, drawing what you see
  • No particular sense other than sight again 
  • 6 lines
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Stanza 6

  • 'people are easy to write about?' - rhetorical question, doesn't fit the pattern of the other stazas
  • 'Don't say it.' - imperative ->commanding
  • Length of the last 4 lines tapers of to mirror what the words are saying
  • No senses
  • 6 lines
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Whole Poem

  • Free verse -> diversity of people
  • There's not much to say about this poem. :/
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