Herbert Lomas The Fly's Poem About Emily

In Herbert Lomas poem “The Fly’s Poem about Emily” he tells the story of a fly, related to another poem from Emily Dickinson, that is from a nightmare and is ready to devour some delicious meat. The fly is happy in this story because the female poet dies instead and the fly gets to eat. The literary element that forms this poem is denotation, literal meaning of a word and the critical strategy formalism, the elements in the work itself. This poem is about how a fly was sent from the devil or Beelzebub to find and eat a dead female poet instead of the fly dieing. What literary element stands out in this poem is diction. Diction is their choice of words. “Beelzebub sent me. I ate their meat. I was the fly on the dead poet’s feet” (pages 626-627).