Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1993

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

Like many other poets of his generation, Espada writes almost always in free verse. Instead of rhyme and formal meter, he relies on his awareness of the natural rhythm created by word stress and repeated sounds, such as those in “that manufactured legal pads” (Line 2), with its stressed/unstressed syllable pattern and repeated ‘a’ sound mimicking the repetitive nature of the work. Alongside these sound effects, he also takes full advantage of the different lengths of line to generate an almost documentary, reel-by-reel quality to the narratives his poems create. This is evident in “Who Burns” through the progression of images from the factory to the stacked paper, then to the fingers of the worker. When he wants to switch focus or angle, Espada uses a line break. Doing this after only two or three words is the equivalent of a film-maker’s rapid cut, while a longer line length has the effect of a prolonged focus. Though some lines are short, each one has a clear and definite image that adds to the narrative. This means the poem has none of the weightless, drifting feel that some free verse has. Each line adds to the tension of the poem and constantly draws the action forward.

If line breaks often equate to a change in shot, the British poet Kate Clanchy (Clanchy, Kate. How to Grow Your Own Poem. Pan Macmillan UK, 2020) points out that free verse poets often use new stanzas as a bigger scene shift. This can be a shift in space or, frequently, as in “Who Burns,” also in time. “Ten years later” (Line 22), as Espada begins the second stanza of this poem, is a familiar technique to the reader steeped in movies. It generates tension and immediate curiosity to find out what has happened in the intervening period.

Alliteration

While alliteration is one of the simpler devices in the poet’s armory, it is worth noting in this poem for the way Espada employs it sparingly, but to great impact. Firstly, the mannered effect of the plosive ‘p’ sound in the title’s “perfection of paper” and the same phrase in the poem itself (Line 11) conveys the absurdity of a system where perfection in real life is but a distant dream. Equally, in Lines 14-16, the recurring sibilant ’s’ sounds mirror the effect of the paper repeatedly cutting the young Espada’s hands.

Assonance

While Espada does not employ rhyme, he makes use of repeated vowel sounds at certain points to perform a somewhat similar function. The first of these is the ‘a’ sound in “the exact rectangle” (Line 13), where the matching vowels mirror the need for each sheet of paper to be lined up identically. Even more notable is the example in the final line comparing law books to “a pair of hands / upturned and burning” (Line 27). Here, the rhythm generated from the repeated long ‘u’ sound creates the effect of the pair of matching hands offering themselves up to the reader.