Point of View

The poems collected in Punks: New & Selected Poems are written from both the first and third person points of view. The majority of the poems assume the first person perspective. All of the pieces found in the sections “Playland” and “The Lost World” are dictated by a first person speaker’s voice. The poems in “Ten Things I Do Every Day” also possess a centralized first person speaker. These pieces largely contain narrative elements, as in the opening poem of the collection, “Mission and Outpost." The speaker begins the piece, “Beneath the awning of the Leland no one / passes as I saunter, hungrily, rolling / from ball to heel on my not-sore foot, waiting / eyes keyed for anybody trolling / or trying to" (3). The speaker is situated in a definite setting, and describing his experiences in and relationship with this place. This same speaker arguably recurs throughout...