Sunday, June 28, 2009
Poem - Messy Room by Shel Silverstein
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
His underwear is hanging on the lamp.
His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair,
And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp.
His workbook is wedged in the window,
His sweater's been thrown on the floor.
His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV,
And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door.
His books are all jammed in the closet,
His vest has been left in the hall.
A lizard named Ed is asleep in his bed,
And his smelly old sock has been stuck to the wall.
Whosever room this is should be ashamed!
Donald or Robert or Willie or--
Huh? You say it's mine? Oh, dear,
I knew it looked familiar!
This poem makes use of imagery. Imagery is language that appeals to our senses, descriptions of people or objects stated in our sense. It allows to be able to imagine what the author is writing. The words such as mucky, wedged, carelessly, hanging, damp, jammed, smelly and ashamed are words that describes the messy room and brings out the imagery of the poem. It also makes use of hyperbole with phrases like 'should be ashamed!' and "Oh, dear." Hyperbole is the use of an exaggerated statement used to heighten effect. It is not used to mislead the reader, but to emphasize a point.
I like this poem as it brings out the messiness of one's room with the humurous twist at the ending. There are many ways in which we could intepret this poem. It could be talking about the people in our society. They often comdemn people for their wrongdoings but they never accept their own mistakes. Or it could be talking about life. People plan and try to stick to those plans to keep their lives organised. But things do not always go the way we want to. Sometimes it goes to a point where we cannot recognise our lives. But we can clean up our lives at the end and get it organised again.
