Wilbur Poetic Analysis

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Richard Wilbur’s poem “A Barred Owl” consists of 2 stanzas, of six iambic pentameter lines each in rhymed couplets. Each stanza consists of one sentence. The first stanza consists of several commas, followed by a question mark in a quotation at the end. The second stanza consists of a run-on sentence followed by a period at the end. In the opening line of the first stanza, the “B” in “boom” recalls the “B” in “brought”. The words “boom” and “warping” are onomatopoeia. “Warping night” and “having brought” both have similar ending with the “ing” and “ght” and this is a form of internal rhyme. The reversed sound patten “arp” and “brou”, make the two words sound mixed together. A tone shift occurs at the end of the first pentameter from the soft, drawn-out /r/ sound in “air” in contrast to the short and abrupt /m/ sound in “boom”. The article “the” preceding “boom” creates a pause effect and quickens the pace before the onomatopoeia, placing stress on the word. “The” used twice in the first line contrasts “an” in the second line, softening the tone of the latter line. There’s a great deal of reversed sound pattern in the first and second line, with the “wa” of “warping” and “ow” of “owl” and “vo” of “voice”. Both “of” and “owl” begin with the letter ‘O’. The /oo/ sound of “into” accentuates an owl’s hoot, which is further echoed by “room” and “boom”. The soft, drawn-out /s/ sound of “voice”, creates a pause effect before “into”. A feminine pronoun, “her” is used to describe the owl and the child. There’s a grammatical relation and internal rhyme with “darkened”, “wakened” and “listened” in the second, third and fifth line. The internal rhyme makes the lines flow together. The past tense grammatical relation contrasts the present continuous relation between “warping” and “having”. The “arp” in “warping” also sounds similar to the “ark” in “darkened”. The /d/ sound at the

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