Friday, February 22, 2013

For the poem "Bombed Last Night," what are the structures (for example, stanzas, verses, capitalization, etc.)?Bombed Last NightGassed last night...

The poem "Bombed Last Night" is actually a song from the
play "Oh! What a Lovely War!" by Charles Chilton.  Song lyrics are quite comparable to
poems, so the same rules and observations
generally apply.


Your question asks for commentary
regarding capitalization, stanzas, and verses.  In the literary world we call those
things the "conventions" of poetry (or really of any written work).  For example, the
conventions of writing a book title are to capitalize the first, last, and all important
words and then either underline it or put it in italics.  The conventions of writing
dialogue are to use quotation marks in certain ways.  The conventions of poetry are
somewhat dependent on the poem.


In this poem, "Gassed Last
Night," the conventions are quite, well, conventional.  Each line begins with a capital
letter, each line ends with a piece of punctuation, and each sentence ends with a
period. Stanzas two and four are the chorus (this is a song, but poems can have
choruses, as well).  Stanzas one and three are the two verses of the song/poem.  The
rhyme scheme is not particularly complex, as the verses are written in simple AABB
form.  There is not a particularly even metrical pattern for the poem, though as a song
it undoubtedly fits a musical rhythm. 


I've included the
site for the lyrics, below.  From my slight research, I think the poem is actually
entitled "Gassed Last Night"; however, I did not change your question to reflect that
because I'm not certain. 

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