Comparison Between Two Poems

Essay by suggaplumHigh School, 10th gradeB+, January 2008

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The two poems, “Plug In, Turn On, Look Out” and “Portrait of a Machine” both talks about machines and they are related to our everyday lives. There are quite a few differences and similarities in the two poems, “Plug In, Turn On, Look Out” and “Portrait of a Machine”.

To start off with, the poem “Plug In, Turn On, Look Out” is warning everyone about how the machines would take over the world and teaching all of us what we should do usually to prevent them taking over and hurting us. The poem picks out all those horrible facts of machines, but on the other hand, the poem “Portrait of a Machine” is praising how beautiful and fantastic machines are.

Both poems has one voice in the poem, only one person is talking and their intended audience are both the world in general, although, the poem, “Plug In, Turn On, Look Out” also speaks directly to you whilst you are reading the poem.

Both poems have two stanzas, enjambment was used in both and the vocabulary in both poems were carefully chosen, each word stringed together into a phrase would add more detail to the image constructed in our minds. There are also quite a few differences, “Plug In, Turn On, Look Out” is a free verse, when “Portrait of a Machine” is a sonnet. In the poem, “Plug In, Turn On, Look Out”, all three tenses are used, to give the feeling that the machines has already started taking over the world, but it has not ended yet. On the other hand, “Portrait of a Machine” only uses the present tense throughout the whole poem. For the poem, “Plug In, Turn On, Look Out”, a lot of...