and then the dog said hello to the ducky
... meant/ To glass the opulent/ The sea-worm crawls – grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent” (lines 6-8) while the iceberg is this looming, personified character in the poem that lurks just at the horizon “Prepared a sinister mate/ For her – so gaily great - /A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate./ And as the ship grew/ In stature, grace, and hue,/ In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too” (lines 19-24). The sea and the iceberg, although one, are separate, and this poignantly comes across in the poem. With a few painless lines and a conversational tone, David R. Slavitt relays the message that no one dear to him died on the Titanic. Not that all poets have to be sensitive to every topic or historical happening, but I thought this poem was not only poorly written, but insensitive, as well. The diction was flat, the line breaks were for no apparent reason, the attempt at humor was dry and result was un...