Sign Inventory, week 7

"The Asians Dying," W.S. Merwin, Contemporary American Poetry, p. 259

• There is no punctuation in the work.
• Negative language is consistent throughout. Examples: "destroyed," "darkness," "Nothing," "Nor," "dead," "pointless," "disappear," "pain," "Death," "no."
• "Forever" and "Nothing" are juxtaposed as the only word in line 3 and the first word of line 4.
• "The possessors" are specifically addressed in the first and last stanzas and are described as being followed by ash "Forever" and being "everywhere."
• "Death" is the only capitalized word within a line.
• "Forever" and "Remains" are the only two one-word lines.
• Nature scenes are created in each stanza and related to death in some way: Stanza 1- forests destroyed; stanza 2- rain in the eyes of "the dead;" stanza 3- "nights disappear;" stanza 4- "possessors[...]under Death" are like "smoke," "thin flames."
• The last words of the final two lines are "past" and "future," each of which ends in a kind of nothingness.
• There are two failed attempts at making sound: 1. Rain- "pointless sound;" 2. "paper bells/ Calling to nothing living."
• Oxymorons of light and darkness are repeated throughout: "ghosts [...] make a new twilight," "Death their star," "thin flames with no light."