poetry texts, poem archive at plagiarist.com

The key to understanding this poem is to look at the setting of each stanza. From there, the rest follows

I like this poem. His enjambment is super. His "death" images progress nicely toward the end, though I think the closing could be stronger (maybe a little more subtle?). Also interesting that while the middle three deaths are generally regarded as futile, Christ's cruxifiction *usually* isn't seen that way. Megan--it seems like you just wrote down all the questions you were assigned from class. Read it over a few times--he isn't being obscure.

when i wrote "futile" i meant "pointless". sorry, i do that sometimes.

Edwin Brock's poem, Five ways to kill a Man, facinated me FROM the beginning. The way he makes the different "ways" seem so logical as if they really are options. His writing flows and the poem is easy to understand. I realy enjoyed it and I still do today. It's stuck up on my bedroom wall!

Kara, I think the whole point is that the first four methods are more pointless than people tend to believe. The three middle ones, I believe, are the crusades, WW1 and WW2. Brock is simply stating that man is, by nature, belligerent. If you read very closely, you can pick out Brock's statement about the market's benefit FROM war.

The poem goes throught several times. It is easy to look at only the message but a blend of the writeing style and the message is what makes this poem great.

Or -- you can always just write him a love poem and then tell him it was nonsense.

I read "Five Ways..."several years ago and have never forgotten it. From the perspective of major historical eras the poet shows the perfecting of the arts of warfare and the withdrawal of human contact in killing of human beings, physically. The keyword, cumbersome, is almost forgotten as the killing becomes technologically easier and imoersonal. But the last way is the most perfect and deadly because it is the the spirit that is attacked. The words "...and leave him there" means certain death in our age, which has embraced self, instant and constant pleasure, and greed. If I had a choice, I'd rather die in company than to die alone, forgotten, in the midst of plenty. At least there might be one survivor who might remember me, and cared. I like this poem because in a way it is a "stealth weapon." At least it caused me to examine my life and make changes.

Good death imagery but it could have used a stronger ending.

are you kidding? the endings is the best part-it cuts deep and gives the reader such a powerful idea of how Brock felt at the time with all of what was going on at the time- how insensitive people were with human life, and how Brock felt about it.