PABLO MONTERO LLANO

FORMATIVE ESSAY
THOM GUNNS THE GAS-POKER

Thom Gunns The Gas-poker accounts for one of the most straight-forward
poems penned by an author more often linked to the Movement and its
conservatism toward the form. Its flowing narration surprises the reader,
who probably doesn`t expect to hear a tragedy told in such an aggressive
way. The story is told by using the in media res technique, as it implies the
way police enters the house through a blocked door to eventually discover
the corpse of Gunns mother. The images appearing right afterwards
resemble the crying of her children mourning at their progenitor. So, the
poem starts by setting time with a great deal of accuracy (Forty-eight years
ago) to immediately recast on the precision put onto it, possibly arguing that
such a long period of time has passed ever since, as if it were some sort of
punishment or blame for Gunn to recall the situation. This quandary can be
taken as a plea for time not to go by in a fast way. The dash serves to
introduce the subject- they-the police, who are in the first place acting on
the course of telling. Nevertheless I assume that a first enjambment is
created artificially as to give value to the door, means of separation from
the atrocious oncoming finding.
First stanza comes to an end raising another question: what did she blocked
the door for? Rapid answer is although provided by the beginning of the
second stanza: to keep the children out. No further explanation concerning
the aforementioned action is drawn. Instead, Gunn proceeds to start off with
the description of the authors mother: her outfit, her occupations during the
previous nightMoreover, she seems to be putting things in order so that
her children are not charged with the burden of the funeral. She is a woman
thinking until the very last minute. Then, all in a sudden we are attending a
run of time and it is the vision of the kids (Gunn was 15 when her mother
committed suicide) going back and forth, yet baffled by the news yet trying
to anaesthetise their grief that comes to us. At the end of the day a burden
is indeed heavily placed upon them, that of an emotional weight.
Gunn happens to use the same pattern above mentioned when it comes to
link a stanza with another. He puts into question whether both children will
know what it is to have their mother dead to eventually assume that they
have come to terms with it. There comes another stage of realistic
description, for her sons are framed coming from nature (remarkable the
point Gunn makes on the December lawn and later on with the grass) to an
enclosed room which paradoxically sets her for her release. The sour-pitched
stanza goes on from a vision of gifted boys loving her mother to the
impersonal spot of both teenagers switching off the gas and doing what
they are expected to do, ultimately call the police.
Last stanza is the vivid representation of death in imagery. There is the
recurring picture of a sort of backwards flute, which could be taken as a
cruel diminished depiction of a potentially lethal gas-poker. The addition of

the verb breathed does no more than place an extra level of morbidity to
the scene, taken for granted it cannot exhale any air nor can Gunns mother
anymore. It is accompanied into her lips not as a quirky sound but music!
And then the contrast teased by her everlasting silence
The aforementioned morbidity is not perhaps the exact term to coin when it
comes to Gunns poetry. It can render rather coldness, insofar warm
glimpses of love fade away in a blink and do transform themselves into
pragmatic action (the boys maturing at the horrific scene). The poem keeps
however away with distance in terms of agency. In contrast with the
personal frame of the authors mother taking away her life there appear
they to open the door. In fact it could be anyone attempting to unblock it
(Lest anyone find/ as they did)
Content is directly linked with the form used along the writing. Children go
back and forth and so do rhythm and narration, following a pattern /theymother-children-they [now impersonalized children]-mother/. Parameters of
rhyme appear whimsical, insofar the only perceptible link can be established
within the third verse and the last one of each stanza, (varying this pattern
on fourth stanza, where rhyme can be observed in second and fifth line). A
remarkable exception accounts for second stanza, in which also fourth and
sixth verse do maintain consonant rhyme). Slant rhyme is used in fewer
occasions, so much as in flow / flute/ mute. Apparently the use of
enjambment seems indefinite in the first seven verses. Then it shifts into a
controlled series of stops which turn out useful depending on the emphasis
aimed at (most of the times rendering cause and effect connection she
had blocked the doorway so / to keep the children out). Hyperbaton joined
to enjambment tend to leave mainly relevant information up to the end of
each stanza, giving place to the so-called quandaries explained over the last
few lines. The metre alternates either 6, 7 or 8 syllable verses which help
out to make the narration flow in a more natural way. However, it turns out
each stanza sounds interrupted or stiff in terms of rhyme, a feeling that
contributes to an unnatural rhythm when read aloud. Other rhetorical
features include asyndeton within the counting of procedures children do
(taking emotions away) but their use is reduced along the composition, with
the only instance of a simile in the last stanza (a sort of backwards flute). As
stated above, the noise a gas- poker is to do is here magnified into music,
likely to provide the act of dying with a greater deal of epicness, turning
out deprecating and cold at a last point.