Against the Evidence (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: David Ignatow
- First Published: 1968
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: Sex or sexuality, Surrealism, Art or artists, Books, Death or dying, Human behavior, Loneliness, Mass media, Life, philosophy of, Life and death, Life, biological, Happiness, Naturalism
The Poem
“Against the Evidence,” a thirty-three-line meditative poem, is characteristic of the autobiographical nature of much of David Ignatow’s poetry. In free verse, it presents the contrast between the “estrangement among the human race” and the narrator’s determination to live.
The poem opens with a seven-line stanza in which the narrator attempts to “close each book/ lying open on my desk” but is attacked by the books themselves as they “leap up to snap” at his fingers, causing pain. The action suggests a mutiny of the books against the speaker,...
[The entire page is 1452 words long]
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