Each of these poems is similar in the respect that they focus on war. While they reach different conclusions, they both present some of the same points. Some of these points being the harshness of war, the separation among people that war leads to, as well as the idea that everyone is involved to some extent. The authors also use imagery as their engine showing the similarity of construction in both poems.

In Beat! Beat! Drums! Walt Whitman?s uses closed form, trochaic meter, and many forced pauses to control the reader?s focus. His form, while trying to simulate the strong organization and structure of the military, forces the reader to create a new picture or scene for every single description. It is impossib

?I was in his house? His daughter filed her nails, his son went out for the night?daily paper, pet dogs, and a pistol on the cushion beside him.?

Forché uses open form design, in The Colonel, to engulf the reader in a prose-like trance. This allows the reader to pause at his own will and take notice of what interests him, allowing emphasis to be placed wherever the reader wants. Forché?s style, while creating an image in the mind, casts the reader into the image of the poem. As the reader is now a part of the poem, images appear clearer and much more vivid. The Colonel, unlike Whitman?s poem, uses simple words with simple meanings to paint its picture. These words allow for small pieces of the painting to form with more time to create detail. The pieces come together slowly,

?The Colonel?pushed himself away from the table. My friend said to me with his eyes: say nothing. The colonel returned with a sack used to bring groceries home. He spilled many human ears on the table?took one of them in his hands, shook it in our faces.?

The specific words used, and the order in which they are placed, cause Whitman to be viewed as a narrator, ?Over the traffic of cities-over the rumble of wheels in the streets.? One reads these words and immediately feels removed, as if being told the story and having the narrator?s view forced upon you, instead of experiencing it firsthand. Whitman?s strong words and phrases, such as ?ruthless force, shrill, so fierce you whirr, and shake the dead where they lie,? furthermore employ the notion that a story is being told. Stories are very different from firsthand experience; they must use strong words and frequent pauses to boost

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