"The Poet"

In “The Poet,” Tom Wayman uses a humorous and ironic tone, utilizing catalog and parallel structure to capture the quirky personality and rare analytical skills of a poet. He creates a rhythmically-structured grocery list that is easy for the reader to understand. By saying the poet “Does not understand what he reads Does not understand what he hears,” Wayman invites the reader to look deeper into his meaning, because everybody knows that poets usually have exceptional reading comprehension abilities. In truth, he means that poets can’t do these simple tasks because they always have to investigate further and they can never take things at face value, so they never feel like they properly understand it fully. Because a poet is constantly gaining new interpretations of his readings, he “May recognize a word one day and not the next.” His sarcasm really emphasizes to the reader what it means to be a thoughtful person who constantly wants to know more.