Compare and Contrast Patrick Phillips Poems, Essay Example

The Patrick Phillips poems Matinee, Piano and The Doe all have the narrative voice that speaks with authority and wisdom on the subject matter. The narrative voice of the Matinee was sharing an experience of the family versus the Piano voice was conversational. Contrasting to the “The Doe” was a voice of a child speaking of their relationship. The Matinee and Piano both express deep emotions but has different conclusions. The Matinee concludes with a dramatic realization that together they would face the perceive gloomy news of cancer. The Piano concludes with a positive, happy and loving moment of comparing the love to the strings of the piano.

The authors poem “The Doe” is quite different from the Matinee and the Piano because the child speaking in the “The Doe” is telling the story about killing the doe as it unfolds. In contrast, the Matinee is after the fact of the bone scan and bad news and the Piano is after experiencing love both in past tense. The voice of “The Doe” is two peoples voice the which is the child voice and the fathers voice but narrated by the child. In contrast, the Matinee is one voice speaking of the bone scan and the Piano one-person narrative about the piano and love. The voice is in the Matinee is expressing the emotions of bad news about possible cancer or serious disease found from the bone scan. In addition, the voice is light and faced paced getting directly to the subject matter. In contrast, “The Doe” has long pauses for each paragraph with no comma’s and the first paragraph ends with a period changing the voice inflection and asking a question at the end of the paragraph. The Doe purposely slows down the reader to think about and feel that emotion of that moment from a loud Browning shotgun blast. In contrast, the Matinee does change the emotions from crying to contemplating to lighter mood to acceptance of fate. The Piano emotions is the same about love and the feelings of love all the way from the start of the poem to the end.

The Matinee is a form of dialogue that advances the actions relating to the bone scan bad news. The imagery that the author made the reader see is “sadness” and “gloom” however, as the poem progresses the image was “laughter” in the middle of the storm or bad news. The images of the Matinee poem were masterful because the images entered the readers mind as they read each line. The first few lines” After the biopsy, after the bone scan, after the consult and the crying” the images was clearly in the hospital being tested with both the biopsy and bone scan means imaging machines and the consult was the physician giving the bad news in private office. The image of the couple crying together after presumed news of terminal cancer or some type of terminal disease. The terminal disease is suggested in bad news and death” they’d gone to the movies. “Something tragic was playing, something epic” this was a brilliant way for the author to lightly suggest that the news from the bone scan was tragic in nature.

The Matinee uses the same type of diction to suggest the story line” for a few hours’ no one could find them, not even my sister, because it turns out they’d gone to the movies” this suggested in one sentence that they were trying to make sense of the bad news so they chose to find a comedy instead of a tragic movie to lighten their mood. In the Piano, the same type of prose was used to explain the nature of the story” Maybe I’m all that’s left of what I was. But touching me, I know, you are the good breeze blowing across its rusted strings” was a way to express the story was still about the emotions of love with diction. The words of the Matinee and the Piano was very simple words and easy to define while understandings its intended meaning. However, The Doe words and diction was complex that required the reader to learn the meaning of the words such as “white haunches” which means the fleshy part of the doe. The “Browning .410” is not a term known to layman persons because it’s a shotgun. The word “scabbard that hung from his belt” is not an everyday word to recognize as the definition is a sword like knife.

The rhythm of “The Doe” is quite different from the Matinee and Piano rhythm because “The Doe” has long sentence structures that is verses not short sentences like Matinee and Piano. The Doe sentence structure flows well because it does not distract the reader and it flows with the child telling the story of bonding with his dad. The Matinee is similar in meaning because the couple was bonding together in response to bad news using the theater. The Piano was similar as well because the author was taking about bonding in love. The rhythm of “The Doe move very gracefully from simple sentence to complex sentences with one flowing phrase each paragraph from one breath. The Matinee and the Piano has short precise prose that was direct to the point with an understand immediately about the subject of love and death. The delivery of “The Doe” covered several different points of manhood, bonding with father, hunting ritual, and childhood experiences.

The rhythm of the Matinee was like a drum beat as the author moved quickly from the start to finish. The diction was a casual narrative that was a calm short conversation. Finally, the Matinee has a deliberate pause after every sentence which is a fast pace rhythm that stops quickly at the end of each line of prose. The Matinee the writer did not want you to think or over think the meaning provide a fast deliver directly to the point, in contrast the Piano was a slow deliberate conversation that wanted the reader to enjoy the moments of the piano and love.

In comparison, Matinee and Piano has some obvious differences such as Piano voice is a conversation about love using the piano as the instrument to explain the love versus the Matinee is a narrative while the author is watching the event unfold. The voice in the Piano has a dramatic tone that is explaining the emotions of love which similar to Matinee that is explaining the emotions of sadness. The form of dialogue is conversational in the Piano as the author has a conversation about the feelings of love. The imagery in the Matinee is sadness and gloom however, the Piano imagery is love, happiness and a feeling of tranquility. The rhythm of the Matinee was like a fast drum beat, in contrast the Piano a slow thought into each short precise paragraph. The Piano each paragraph provide an image such as first paragraph examples how they were smashed by the goodness of love which means it overwhelm them. The second paragraph the image of someone in love that has changing or wrecking emotions. The third paragraph was the image of someone moving their fingers across the strings to emulate the wonderful sound of love. The last paragraph was an image of the harp making their heart and emotions sing because of this good love.

The Matinee has a pace that was fast getting right to the point with no delays in thought which made the poem direct to the point. In contrast, the Piano let the reader take their time to slowly understand the authors emotions of love and goodness of a person. The diction in the Piano was positive diction because the writer keeps the words light but all concerning the piano as the same implied feelings of love expressed.

All three poems show the trademark of Patrick Philips style of writing that uses vivid imagery that created very clear mental pictures with the reader of the poems. The images were alive, strong, allowing the reader to experience the emotions felt by the narrative, conversation and child hood experience.