Explication poetry

The author of the poem The Correspondence-School Instructor Says Goodbye to His Poetry Students, Galway Kinnell studied poetry at Princeton University. Galway discards the notion of seeking accomplishment by escaping into the fantasy world. His most famous poems are After Making Love We Hear Footsteps and St. Francis and the Sow. He has won various Pulitzer Awards for Poetry as well as a National Book Award for poetry in 1982.

The poem is written in an educational background that involves students and instructors who share a weak link. The instructor is a correspondent teacher at a different school and therefore does not know his students on a first name basis. Nevertheless, they still communicate through letters that expose how they really think about their instructor at the end of the course. Some express admiration, others show indifference while others show attraction to the positive traits of the instructor.

The first lines of the poem introduce the poem using a simple style that puts the reader at ease. Galway brings out the spoilt behavior of some of the younger generations who make suggestive passes at their instructor that is a common behavior among college-going female students. Galway starts with ironical language when he comments that the woman in Bangor sent him photos, though he had already mentioned the girl’s beauty. He writes “…lady in Bangor, who sent me snapshots of yourself, after definitely hinting you were beautiful…” (Kinnell, line 1-3). Galway also starts the poem on a somber mood as he bids his students and associates goodbye when he is leaving. This irony is also duplicated in the mention of the “…Miami Beach urologist; who enclosed plain brown envelopes for the return of your very “Clinical Sonnets” (Kinnell, 4-6).

Galway Kinnell uses imagery in describing the activities of the brassiere manufacturer at the Coast. Galway is inclined to using suggestive remarks in his works that indicates that even as a college instructor, he was conscious of the adolescence of his students. He says “…goodbye, manufacturer of brassieres on the Coast, whose eclogues give the fullest treatment in literature yet to the sagging breast motif” (Kinnell, line 7-9). Galway brings up the image of the manufacturer as being similar to the lifting effect of a good eclogue. The usage of the sagging breast motif brings out the idea that the brassiere manufacturer was excellent in his trade. It also exposes the perverted aspect of Galway’s works that made naughty remarks in references to the job occupations and other elements in society.

Galway uses the first person voice in his writing of the poem, The Correspondence-School Instructor Says Goodbye to His Poetry Students. He uses sarcasm in mentioning the closing remarks of one of his students. The way in which he does it brings out deep-seated sentiments concerning Hitler and the German Revolution. The usage of the first vice technique displays the intention of the author to make the poem be as original as possible. One of his students wrote a very neat letter that praised the poets and artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood but closed the letter by writing “Being German my hero is Hitler: instead of the conventional “Sincerely yours” (Kinnell, line 10-12). Perhaps this rash ethnic awareness and bias nigh have triggered the snide remarks that qualified to be included in Galway’s poem.

In the 13^th line of the poem, Galway makes a statement that expresses his impersonal character. The narrator speaks from a secluded environment where he has a thin bond between him and the students. He had no compulsion to be friendly or caring for his students. Apparently, Galway is not as attached to the community in which he resided and expresses comic emotions when he browses through the letters. Although he truly means it, the narrator brings it out in a funny way when he says “I swear to you, it was just my way of cheering myself up, as I licked the stamped, self-addressed envelopes, the game I had of trying to guess which one of you, this time, had poisoned his glue…”(Kinnell, line 16-18). This expression of sadist thoughts might have been Galway’s way of coming to terms with the pending separation from his students. In these lines, one can sense the loneliness in his voice. In fact, Galway writes his poem from an imaginary place just like the rest of his students. The letters come from towns such as “…Xenia, Burnt Cabins, Hornell…”(Kinnell, line 34-5) which stress the somber mood in the poem that is only concluded by Galway’s mention of their sad state in the sentence “…their solitude given away in poems, only their loneliness kept” (Kinnell, line 35-6).

In the poem, sarcasm is applied in the way in which the narrator answers to some of the letters from his students. Probably, the author and the narrator share a common disregard for the feelings and opinion of the students. While licking the stamps for the letters he is sending, he casually thinks to himself if one of his students might have poisoned his glue. From line 13 to 18, Galway casually comments “…as I licked the stamped self-addressed envelopes, the game I had of trying to guess which one of you, this time, had poisoned his glue” (Kinnell, line 21-4). While Galway knows that he is just joking when he says things “…in the mildest words” (Kinnell, line 21), his students might probably feel unwanted to a level that they might poison him.

The narrator expressed indifference towards the demands and sentiments of the students. In the last part of the poem, he displays feigned concern that may have originated from the surprise that students who barely knew him had contacted him. At this part of the poem, Galway discards all of the literary styles and is perhaps one of the most authentic parts of the poem that can be used to get an idea of his character and emotions at the time. Galway uses simple and direct language when he writes, “I did care. I did read each poem entire. I did say everything I thought in the mildest words I knew” (Kinnell, line 19-21). The poem also carries with it aspects of remorse from the narrators’ side.

Galway’s use of diction in the poem is visible in his first verse that mentions some of his students that either he bids goodbye or who are bidding him goodbye. The use of diction allows an author to use difficult words to explain a phenomenon that could have been done using simple vocabulary. Galway was a learned individual and his literary skills were praised. In the twelfth line, the narrator says “…at the end of long, neat-scripted letters extolling the Pre-Raphaelites…” (Kinnell, line 13-14). In this sentence, the author explains that one of the students wrote a letter praising historical poets. Instead of using simple language, Galway uses the Pre-Raphaelite term that means the group of the eighteenth century artist that included poets who were skilled in writing.

Galway uses repetition as a style within the poem, The Correspondence-School Instructor Says Goodbye to His Poetry Students. In fact, the author repeats phrases that serve to stress the idea that he cherishes such moments even though this is cleverly masked behind indifference on the part of the narrator. At this point, Galway reveals his disappointment in having to leave the students and his teaching. From the first line, he opens the theme by saying “Goodbye”. After noting the desperate act by the woman from Bangor who sent him pictures of herself, he again repeats the same sentiments. The narrator says goodbye to different people as can be witnessed from the poem. Such instances as “…Goodbye, lady in Bangor, who sent me snapshots of yourself…” (Kinnell, line 1-2), “goodbye and “…manufacturer of brassieres on the Coast, whose eclogues give the fullest treatment in literature yet to the sagging breast motif; goodbye…” (Kinnell, line 3-5) are enough evidence that repetition was applied.

The author’s use of different voice tones in the poem enables him to add variety to the poem. In the first part of the poem, the author portrays the narrator as a dreamy instructor who looks back at his happy memories and wishes all the people in his life a good time. At this point, the reader is convinced that the narrator is a normal person exhibiting common behavior. However, in the second part of the poem the narrator takes on a different tone as he becomes more somber and melancholic. The narrator begins to take on the new role that culminates in him admitting that if any of the earlier proceedings was real; their loneliness would be exposed through their poems.

Kinnell also makes use of hyperbole in his poem. This refers to the style of using exaggeration to stress a point or as a figure of speech. When perusing through the letters in a bid to sort them out, the narrator comically notes that the way in which he separated with the students might have been very bad to a point that they might have wanted to end his life just so they could get their revenge. This might have been done to stress some of the more glaring aspects of his time and experiences teaching students. In the poem, the narrator says “…as I licked the stamped, self-addressed envelopes, the game I had of trying to guess which one of you, this time, had poisoned his glue” (Kinnell, line 17-9) From this excerpt, we can conclude that the narrator had blown the whole situation out of proportion. From the analysis, Galway Kinnell is an exemplary author of fantastical poems that revolve around the aspect of relating with abstract ideas. Kinnell, in his poem, expresses the combination of various literary styles that complete the sorrowful image that he wanted to pass.

Work cited