Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 15-18
Triolets, villanelles, rondels, rondeaus,
Seeds in a dry pod, tick, tick, tick,
Tick, tick, tick, what little iambics,
While Homer and Whitman roared in the pines?
- Hmm… these lines seem oddly… familiar. Where have we heard this before, Shmoopers?
- Oh, right—back in lines 5 and line 1. Line 15 is the exact same as line 5; line 16 is the exact same as line 1.
- And now, come to think of it, line 17 combines large chunks of lines 2 and 3. So, what gives? Did the speaker just run out of ideas here?
- Unlikely—these lines are probably just another way of reiterating what he's already said before: these poetic forms are pretty much saying… well, nothing. They just sound like the dry, ticking of a bunch of withered seeds. And when he's trying to make a point about how dull and repetitive these forms are, it makes sense that he just copies-and-pastes earlier lines to be equally dull and repetitive.
- You know who's not dull and repetitive, though? That's right: our main men Homer and Walt Whitman. No dull forms or rose poems for these two famous poets—instead our speaker says that they "roared in the pines."
- Remember from line 4 that this is no ordinary set of pine trees. This is the place where all the poetic magic happens, where dull ticks become symphonies. Put another way: this is where real, true, honest art happens.
- The rest just sounds like two mites in a scuffle—in other words, it doesn't rate.
- So, given that our speaker is pretty likely the titular "Petit, the Poet" (check out "What's Up with the Title?"), the end of this poem would be a good time to ask which kind of poetry he wrote in his own life (don't forget that dude is dead, narrating all this from the grave).
- Considering his admission in line 14 of his being "blind," it seems that our speaker is admitting to having written the bad stuff, the old, dead, dry forms of poetry. He just missed all the great stuff in his line, while poets better poets than he were off roaring in the pines.
- But, hey, at least he was able to put this poem together for us? Right? Anyone?