The Use of Imagery
The writer has used the word "putty" (Line 17) to generate a mental image of a glue. The conversations between the man and woman that the persona have an impression that he hopes his two friends do not use the excuse of conversation to connect to their silences. Also, 'chess' has been used as an imagery in the poem (18). The effect of using the word is to imply a game, and hopes that his two friends do not use the excuse of having conversations to play games with each other or the persona. Using the game of chess as an imagery is also important since it creates an idea that the conversation should not be viewed by the two friends of the persona as a tool through for deception. The pattern of images used include similes and personification. For example, the conversation the persona's friends, the man and woman make is compared to putty, the symbolic word for glue.
Repetition and its Impact
On the specific words that tend to appear again and again within the poem, the word 'occasionally' appears in line (13) and line (14). The author has used the repetition effect to achieve emphasis, in that he only prefers that this friends surprise him with their conversations only from time to time. Similarly, the word talk has been used both in line (7) and in line (8), so has the word laugh (9) and (10). Use of these two verbs has an effect of creating emphasis, through which the persona says he only prefers that his friends engage in talking and laughing with themselves and with him too.
The Voice in the Poem and the Character
The speaker of the poem (persona) is a lonely person who prefers his own company, but at the same time wishes he would have friends as his companions. The friends that he infers to have to be a man and preferably a woman. In the context of the poem, it looks like the two companions the persona yearns for could be his parents. The persona is working, and when tired or lonely, would like to have friends that help him take away his loneliness. The persona also appears to be a selfish person, because he prefers that his friends to know him better than they even know themselves. For example, in line (5) and (6), the voice says: who knew me better than they knew each other.
The Attitude of the Persona to What He Speaks About
The persona in the poem degrades his friends, and would prefer that they get satisfied by sleeping in the closet that he keeps his clothes, or happy staying in the basements of his house behind the furnace. From the poem, lines (23), (24) and (25), and (26) he says, were content in my clothes closet or in the basement behind the furnace where they would stay. From the lines, it is clear that the voice in the poem has a degrading attitude towards his desired friends.
His attitude, however, is that of a man who prefers to manage his companions. His attitude to the companions he so yearns for is that they would only talk in proportions that he is comfortable with the topic of their conversations should not contain elements of treachery. The persona is also an introvert, because he gets prefers solitude when recharging, only requiring conversations from time to time. For example, he says: 'in the basement/behind the furnace/where they would stay/while I worked/ or slept or I was happier/ alone' (25-30). This points out that he is a person that enjoys his own company, even though he yearns that one provided by the friends he imagines.
Work cited
Nowlan, Alden. I Might Not Tell Every Body this: Poems. Clarke, Irwin, 1982.
