“The Facebook Sonnet” and “Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World” are two poems written by Sherman Alexie that share some of the same techniques. However, the two poems are not so alike in many ways. The content of this essay will converse about the themes of the two poems and how techniques are used to illustrate them. The main difference between these two poems is the how Sherman Alexie uses techniques in the two poems. With this in mind, the tone of the two poems will also be analyzed.
Sherman Alexie’s techniques he uses in “Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World” create a sorrowful mood and shows the anger and grief of Alexie towards losing his father. The techniques that Alexie uses in “The Facebook Sonnet” describes Facebook quite truthfully in just fourteen lines. Rhythm in “Grief Calls Us To the Things of This World” and “The Facebook Sonnet” differ from one another: “The Facebook Sonnet” has a rhythm of that of a Shakespearean Sonnet with three quatrains consisted of four lines each and ends with a couplet with a rhyme scheme of AB – AB/ CD – CD/ EF – EF/ GG, for example:
Welcome to the endless high-school
Reunion. Welcome to the past friends
And lovers, however kind or cruel.
Let’s undervalue and unmend (1-4)
But is technically not written in iambic pentameter since each line only has four feet. “Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World” has no particular rhyme scheme at all, but does follow a pattern of five feet per line. Here you can see the difference in rhythm and rhyme scheme of the two poems.
There are other techniques in the poems “The Facebook Sonnet” and “Grief Calls Us to the Things of This World” that Alexie uses, for example: Personification, imagery, repetition, and metaphors. In line twelve of “The Facebook Sonnet” it says, “Let church.com become our church” (12) this is a sign of personification giving the church or the internet human characteristics by saying let the church be a website. “Welcome