A Martian Sends a Postcard Home

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A Martian sends a postcard home This poem is about an alien visiting earth and just like the title states he sends a postcard home. He wanders around our world as he watches us live out our everyday lives. He sees the world very differently from us and does not seem to understand everything we do. Some things that are natural appear to be mechanical in his eyes. For example, electronics, such as cell phones, are seen as natural things in his eyes and natural things are viewed as mechanical. This is an informal poem and is written in free verse. There are no rhymes but the story is full of riddles. The author describes ‘Caxtons’ as machines. He is illustrating a book and he defines it as a machine because books lack the ability to think and have emotions. The poems structure consists of seventeen stanzas of two lines each. There is a use of metaphors and similes and they are used to describe what the Martian sees upon his visit to earth. The language in the text is not very difficult but rather imaginative because it gives a description of everyday things from a Martians perspective. It’s really rather amusing to read because once the reader has solved the riddles it is fun to see how different and foreign his views are. The poem is structured to re-create images and cause reflection on the way we view the earth. This poem reminds us to appreciate something beautiful. The author uses several riddles in this poem to show the Martians point of view when he visits earth. He does a very good job in doing this. For example, the first stanza of the poem is talking about a book. Mechanical birds with wings. The wings refer to the pages. Because the Martian is not familiar with human emotion he describes the emotions received, while reading, as ‘melting of the eyes’ better known as crying and laughter as ‘the body shrieking without pain’. Stanza six comes out straight
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