Sign Inventory Post, week 8

In reference to Robert Creeley's "I Know a Man," Contemporary American Poetry, p. 218

• The word "said" is abbreviated "sd" once in each stanza, except the third. It is also the only word abbreviated in the work, besides "yr" for "your."
• "I" is repeated three times in stanza 1 and nowhere else in the piece. "I" is also used in reference to the dominance of conversation in stanza 1: "because I am/always talking,"
• "John" is the only name referenced in the poem. "John" is also "not his [John's] name."
• "John" and "I" are the only capitalizations besides the first letter of the first word. The word "christ" is not capitalized.
• The work moves from points of view: from "I' in stanza 1, to "his" in stanza 2, to "we" in stanza 3, to "he" and "yr" in stanza 4. Oddly,the piece ends with the only 2nd-person perspective throughout. It is the only time the other passenger speaks.
• The whole piece is one, run-on sentence.
• The Lord's name is used twice, once in each of the last two stanzas, in reference to a "big car" and his "sake." Both are used in vain, neither is capitalized, and both are in answer to to a question of "darkness" that "surrounds."
• The characters in the work are entirely anonymous aside from Christ, who is only referred to in abstraction.
• The word "surrounds" is enjambed at the syllable break and is the only hyphenated word.
• The solution to the problem of the "darkness" is purchasing a "goddamn big car." Similarly, "drive" is the offered solution to the first speaker's dilemma.