2014-00791-MN-0

Midterm Examination in Introduction to Stylistics

ABE 4-2 Prof. Jose V. Clutario

The Secretary Chant

1.) What is the poem about? What is your general interpretation of the poem? Cite lines from
the text that support your assumptions.

The poem, in my assumption, is a bold description of a secretary or even an office

worker who, as she continuously does her work, became more like office tools than a human.
All throughout the poem, there were vivid descriptions of how she likened parts of herself to
objects like a desk (on the 1st line) as her hips; her head (on the tenth line) as a switch board;
her navel (on the 16th line) as a button. I think the poem is also about the difficulty and troubles
of a secretarys work due to the repeatedly done paper works as in line 17 where it says, From
my mouth issued cancelled reams..

The poem seemed as if the persona slowly blended herself with the machines and tools
inside her workplace as she does her job. I daresay that what the persona felt was nothing close
to being joyful towards her work and if anything, more like a robotic sense of duty; this can be
assumed from the last four lines of the poem that says, File me under W/ because I wonce/
was/ a woman. The separation of the word was in a single line can also mean that the poem
wants to emphasize that being a woman was all in the past and it was before she started the
job.

2.) Identify and describe the stylistic features of the poem (graphology, phonology, lexical,
morphological, grammatical) that are foregrounded.

For the graphology of the poem, the title is the first thing that I noticed since it was
typed in bold and italic font. By this, the poem emphasized the title The Secretary Chant, and
since the title mentioned the word chant, the form of the poem from afar looks like lyrics from
a song because it was not in line with the other lines; some lines appear longer or shorter than
other lines which is the same from when we look at the lyrics of a song in a song book. This
could also mean that the title tells the reader that the poem is sort of a song as mentioned in
the title The Secretary Chant, and the reason why the poem is short with few words on each
line is because it is as mentioned, a chant. The use of punctuation marks is noticeable in the
poem although in my analysis, inconsistency with the proper usage of comma and period was
also present. The capitalized letters almost always mean the start of another comparison or
another statement in the poem.

The use of sound devices can be observed in the poem. The last three lines used
alliteration wonce/ was/ a woman/, there is a repetition of words that begin with the
consonant sound w, although wonce was a coined word. There is also the employment of
onomatopoeia in the poem. The terms buzz, click, zing, and tinkle in lines 8 and 15 stands
for the sounds that we usually hear inside an office. Rhymes and end rhymes are not prominent
in the poem. A phonological or phonetic parallelism can be heard when we pronounce the 11 th
line of the poem crossed lines crackle. Both crossed and crackle are pronounce with the
phonetic sound /kr/. In the 14th line credit and debit can also be considered as internal rhymes.
The repetition of the words My head in lines 9 and 10 stands out since there appears to be a
stress on the head of the persona compared to other parts which means it is on the worst
condition. This repetition of the word My in most lines and usually in the beginning of the lines
speaks that the persona and what is happening to her, is the sole focus of the poem

Lexical deviation is present in the poem. An obvious example is found on the 23 rd line of
the poem, wonce is not a word that exists, it is a neologism created by the author from the
word woman and once; since the last lines is a reminder from the persona that she was once a
woman before she became like what she described throughout the poem. The form of the
poem cuts parts of the sentences for the purpose of emphasis, chains of paper clips in the 3 rd
line of the poem was removed from the second line which gave it emphasis since it will be
solely read by the readers, the same goes for mimeograph ink. I, in addition, think that the
lines were cut in that manner to show the effect that the secretary became more like a tool or
even a robot because if we will observe, robots or even computer-generated tools when giving
instructions speak in pauses and involuntary stops.

Metaphors are widely used throughout the poem, I think this style was applied in the
poem because the author does not want the reader to imagine the likeness of a part of the
body to an object, but rather the direct comparison between the two. Imagine if the poem will
apply simile and not metaphors, the effect that the poem has to a reader will also be different.
The poem does not have grammatical deviation in my analysis, the poem appears to follow
grammatical sequence of nouns and adjectives.

3.) How do you associate these foregrounded aspects of the text to your general interpretation?

The foregrounded aspects of the text helped in developing the general interpretation of
the text. The foregrounded aspects gave and revealed valid reasons why the poem is like this or
that. Using these aspects, we can now make a general interpretation of the poem by applying
them.

The graphological analysis/deviation in the poem supports the reason why the form of
the poem was typed that way. The poem is in a song-like form and it can be observed that it
stays true to its title that it is a chant due to the noticeable repetition of words especially at the
beginning of the lines. The sound devices became an additional aspect of the poem that adds to
the sound that it makes when it is being read. There is a steady flow of idea that the poem
presents contrary to the inconsistent cuts in the lines of the poem and the use of punctuations.
The idea of comparison was expressed from the start to finish of the poem and was only altered
when the persona remembered that she was not like that in the past. The analyses
strengthened the general interpretation of the poem.