Karl Shapiro if the Poet

Karl Shapiro If the poet Karl Shapiro were alive today, he would probably have an ironic laugh at how his poem, "Auto Wreck," is even more apropos decades after it was written.

In this day of reality TV everyone is becoming a voyeur, what the dictionary defines as "obsessive observer of sordid or sensational subjects." In an interview concerning his work, Shapiro once explained that "Auto Wreck," is part of an autobiographical series of poems where he as the Poet, the persona, becomes one of the "we" in the poem peering in from the outside with the other onlookers to the action that is occurring.

In this case, the "we" are curious spectators who are watching an ambulance remove a body from a car crash. Through the use of a number of different literary devices, such as metaphors, symbolism and imagery Shapiro describes the crash itself and, more importantly, the reactions of the "audience" as they view the scene. Shapiro begins his poem with the use of alliteration and word repetition, "soft silver bell beating, beating," to symbolize the repeated siren sounds.

He then quickly moves into a simile that describes both the scene of the accident and the victim, "And down the dark one ruby flare. Pulsing out red light like an artery." The reds of the lights, the flare and blood pulsing through the body blend into one another.

The poet now transitions into a metaphor, comparing the ambulance to a winged vehicle floating down to the road as it soars past the views of everyday life, "Past beacons and illuminated clocks." However, it is too late for the winged angel, despite its speed and ability to rise above the road to its intended destination. The scene is set and anyone reading these first few lines already can close his/her eyes and envision what is happening.

It is easy to imagine the ambulance coming to a screeching halt and the emergency medical technicians rushing to the body, as the lights of the ambulance and flare display pulsating red shadows on the road across the drying blood. The bell tolls once, "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee," referring to John Donne's Meditation.

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness....No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Thus, Shapiro is introducing the idea that the spectators, all of the "we," could have easily been this person. Everyone's life is just as precarious and uncertain. That, in fact, is why the people are watching this happening. They realize that "there but by the grace of God goes me." Too bad for this person, but thankfully it is not me or a loved one instead. The ambulance drives off, being compared to a boat rocking in the water with its cargo.

Perhaps going down the River Styx to its next destination with the afterlife. Meanwhile, the deranged viewers walk among the police officers who take notes, wash down the street of it blood, sweep up glass. Another metaphor likens the hanging "lanterns on the wrecks that clings, Empty husks of locust, to iron poles." With locusts, what was once green and lush, becomes brown and barren. Here, what was just minutes ago a living, breathing body, becomes dead and inert.

And what is the reaction of the voyeurs to this sight? Was it what they wanted, hoped to see? Now the onlookers look just like patients, "Our throats were tight as tourniquets, Our feet were bound with splints, but now, Like convalescents intimate and gauche..." However, worse yet, is the horror of recognition that there is no reason why one person lives and another dies. This is the lesson for the day: This person could have been good or evil, a friend or foe, young or old.

It did not matter. It as his time to die. Already old, the question Who shall die? Becomes unspoken who is innocent?" Almost like a chant, Shapiro now responds to himself and the other people at the accident. "For death in war is done by hands; Suicide has cause and stillbirth, logic; And cancer, simple as a flower, blooms." If we go into battle, we perhaps will be killed. If we commit suicide, we realize that our life is over.

With cancer, we know for some time that death is near. Yet with a car wreck, that occurs in an instant of a second, "And spatters all we knew of denouement. Across the expedient and wicked stones." This is the irrationality of life and death. There is no reason why it is him, not one of us. The remaining situation at the scene of the wreck is like those taking place every day. Shapiro so aptly draws a picture of human nature.

After the ambulance shuts its doors and disappears, the firefighters put out their last.