Choose two poems from the book Donkey Gospel and argue for a single theme supported by both poems - Thesis Example

This paper gives an insight into two of his famous poems from the very collection, and how the two may be compared to each other on the basis of stark humour. The poet is not afraid to go all out and make comments about everyday things that might end up hurting others. This is because, he has tried to make everything simple and help people understand the spirit and jest hidden in everything. His writing style elucidates the kind of writing a man with an open conscience would be able to carry out well.

The two poems chosen for the purpose of analysis within this paper are ‘Jet’ and ‘Reading Moby Dick at 30,000 Feet’. Both the poems have the element of humour within them explained with the help of examples taken from life’s perspective. “On earth, men celebrate their hairiness, and it is good, a way of letting life out of the box, uncapping the bottle to let the effervescence gush through the narrow, usually constricted neck.” (Hoagland, Tony) These lines have been taken from the poem titled Jet, and they talk about the obviousness that a person must go through in life, in order to understand its true meaning.

Adept with deep humour, the lines talk about how a man has no choice but to celebrate the joy of life with what he has, even if it is his own bodily hair, and doing this is the best way by which one can let go of himself. He has tried to make an analogy of a person’s imagination and mind with that of champagne gushing out of the narrow neck of a glass bottle. The humour in the lines can be seen in the way Hoagland has tried to portray the simplicity of life; equipped with personal hair. He means to tell his readers that a person might not have much but even facial or body hair is enough to get him out of the rat race that everyone seems to be so inherently a part of.

In his other poem titled “Reading Moby Dick at 30,000 Feet, he writes, “I would estimate the distance between myself and my own feelings is roughly the same as the mileage from Seattle to New York, so I can lean back into the upholstered interval between Muzak and lunch, . . .” (Hoagland, Tony) Through these very lines, the poet has again tried to make humorous comparisons of life with analogies taken from everyday routines that people undergo. He has tried to depict how human emotions and feelings do not only play up when a person wants them to do so, against or for someone else.

Feelings are something that is strong enough to distance a man from his own self too. So in accordance to the same, he writes that his feelings are as far away from himself as the distance there is between Seattle and New York and the best part about embarking upon this long journey of figuring out what his feelings are actually, is that during the interim period, a person is able to relax into his calm sub conscious mind and make travels to and fro the various nooks and crannies in the corner of one’s mind (between music and lunch, or other aspects of daily living.) Both these poems thus are very similar to one another on the basis of the theme that they have been written in.

They both talk about certain fundamental questions of life and how to counter a person’s emotions. Both poems have strong analogies with a certain hint of humour equipped in them as well. Even though the poems might answer different questions altogether, they do fall into line while coming