Lay Us Down a Sick Beat Bro - Memories of West St and Lepke IV

This post is part of my poetry analysis on Robert Lowell's Memories of West Street and Lepke, the poem and original post can be found at: http://robertlowellandco.blogspot.com/2009/05/like-arrr-this-poems-about-like-jail.html

Lowell begins his poem with a very harmonious and flowing rhythm which helped to create the calm and relaxed mood but this all changed when he began writing about his time in jail. He uses the line “Ought I regret my seedtime?” as a pivot point between these two rhythmic styles; there seems to be a gap mid-phrase when read. The rhythm that follows is both harsher and somewhat broken. For example the words “Given a year” seem like only a fragment of a line.
He also breaks rhythm in this section; when describing people he writes in an almost prose style. For example rhythm is broken when describing Czar Lepke’s cell (“or dawdling of to his little segregated cell full of things forbidden to the common man: a portable radio, a dresser, two toy American flags tied together with a ribbon of Easter Palm”). He does this to create an even greater feel of realism which you can easily get from prose style writing as opposed to flowing poetry. He also helps create this vivid and realistic picture by placing a variety of references to colour and other certain elements.

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Rhythm and Rhyme are both brilliant contributers to a poems effectiveness and any aspects of it that do so should be included. In this instance there is a stark contrast between two sections of the poem and the rhythm is broken occaisionally in favour of prose style writing. Emotive words can be used when talking about rhythm and rhyme to accompany the objective facts given but you need to back them up with quote. As always I have ended the paragraph with a linking sentence.