The Poet at Seven by Donald Justice

The poem “The Poet at Seven” by Donald Justice uses many literary elements, including tone, to convey the idea about the joys of writing poetry throughout the poem. The speaker reveals that many common childhood experiences correspond to the purposes of writing poetry which he feels are important. The speaker reveals his feelings toward his childhood and how he will use childhood experiences to write effective poetry. He wants to write poetry to help people relive their positive childhood memories. Through this he reveals the tone of a happy childhood. He does this through many metaphors which explain how childhood behaviors stay with him his entire life. The first metaphor he uses relates hiding from the rain to hard times because as a child rain was a misfortune. As a child when it rains you must stay inside and most children would rather be outside. Also rain is sometimes unexpected like most difficulties. In order to counter the rain, the speaker hides under a chair, just like most adults avoid a situation when they don’t know what to do. Another metaphor example is flying a paper airplane which is related to following your dreams. As a child you are always told to follow your dreams and as you become older you still following your dreams although they might change. This metaphor relates childhood memories to the purposes of writing poetry because when you read poetry many times the poem’s author writes about following their dreams. As a child I remember playing a game with my brother where we would spin in circles until one of us fell down. When I read “he would whirl around faster and faster” I thought of this memory even though that is not the meaning you get from context. The context evidence is comparing spinning until dizzy to being drunk and the feeling you get when you are drunk. This is important to the relationship between childhood memories and poetry because it shows that simple childhood games can be related to situation adults often face. The