Reading Response: The Grammar Lesson

Steve Kowit's "The Grammar Lesson" appears to be some sort of grammar guide condensed into a poem. Kowit starts by introducing the phrase "the can of beets is filled with purple fuzz" and continues to analyze the various parts of speech present in the sentence. He starts by boldly stating that "a noun's a thing. A verb's what it does." This idea resurfaces throughout the poem and seems to be the central idea.

The poem doesn't follow a rhyme scheme, there is punctuation, there is virtually no imagery, symbolism, etc, and figurative language is very minimal. In addition, I found the poem a bit awkward to read because of the unusual order in which certain words are placed. For example, "is is a helping verb. It helps because filled isn't a full verb. Can's what our owns in "our can of beets is filled with purple fuzz" just sounds a bit bizarre to say the least. You really need to read it out loud to grasp what it is really trying to say.

My my main objection to this poem is that I do not think it deserves the "poem status" simply because it lacks the ability to captivate the readers or to instill in them a sense of wonder; it is also deprived of any literary value which makes it very difficult to appreciate.