Poetry Precis #17: "A Man I Knew"

In “A Man I Knew,” Margaret Levine uses a detached, distant tone together with syntax and symbolism to describe a person who has a sad unfulfilled life. The poem starts off with the symbolism of “a condo,” showing that this man that she used to know owns his own fancy home, implying that he cares about materialism, but not necessarily other more important things in life. He seems rich and detached, as he has a “maid who comes every other week,” showing how he does not have a spouse and pays someone else to deal with his mess. This is symbolic for the fact that he probably has many issues in his life, but he does not like to deal with his emotional problems and has other people deal with it for him. The poem continues and says how he has “kids who don’t” come to visit him, and they only “float on the dresser” like in a picture frame, and are not in his life. He is totally detached from his family and doesn’t seem to try to reach out, as it says they “float forever, like a boat” symbolizing the distance between him and his family. The syntax of the poem is noticeable, because it is made up of short, fragmented sentences, which is just like his life; cut off and detached. Levine is able to convey all of this to the reader through the symbolism and syntax to get her message across.