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An ambulance rushes to the scene of an accident, and hurriedly gathers up the victims before rushing
them away.
The poet then explores the emotions felt by the spectators before finally raising the philosophical question
of why those particular people had died -- were they innocent, or were they guilty of something deserving
death?
ABOUT THE POET
Karl Jay Shapiro was born in Baltimore in November 1913. Although he studied at the University of
Virginia (1932-33) and later at Johns Hopkins University (1937-39), he nevertheless never earned a
college degree.
He served in the army for the duration of World War II and it was then that his poetry began to be
published. He would send poems home to his fiancé, who had them printed.
His first collection -- V-Letter and Other Poems -- was published in 1944. It portrayed the
feelings of soldiers who were fighting for their country during the war but whose letters were censored
before being delivered to their loved-ones back at home.
As early as 1945 Shapiro won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for this work. He was then only 32
years of age.
He was therefore already a noted man of letters by the time he returned from the war, enabling him to
become the American Poet Laureate in 1946 and 1947 -- a title which at the time meant "Consultant
in Poetry to the Library of Congress".
Despite his lack of the usual academic credentials, Shapiro not only served as editor of two prestigious
journals -- Poetry: A Magazine Of Verse and Prairie Schooner -- but he also taught at
a number of campuses including Johns Hopkins University, the University of Nebraska and the University
of Chicago.
He was a professor at the University of California when he retired in the mid-1980s.
Shapiro was awarded several prizes for poetry, including the Shelley Memorial Prize (1945), two
Guggenheim Fellowships (1945-46 and 1962-63), and the Bollingen Prize (1968).
He was also elected to a number of prestigious organizations, such as the National Institute of Arts &
Letters, the National Academy of Arts & Sciences, and the Library of Congress's Fellows in American
Letters.
Contrary to a statement in a prescribed anthology, Shapiro was NOT "married and divorced" to
several "young students". Indeed, he was married only three times.
The first was in 1945 and it was to his editor and agent, Evelyn Katz, with whom he had two children. This
marriage lasted 22 years but ended in divorce in 1967.
That very year he married to Teri Kovach but she died in 1982, leaving him free to marry once again. He
would, however, wait another three years before doing so, this time to Sophie Wilkens.
She would survive him when he himself died in New York in May 2000. He was then 86 years of age.
Have you looked at the questions in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer the following questions:
"Its quick soft silver bell beating, beating
And down the dark one ruby flare
Pulsing out red light like an artery."
- What is ALLITERATION? Why is it used in a poem? (2)
[Need help?]
ALLITERATION is the repetition of a consonant, usually for some poetic reason, like creating a lyrical or
musical effect.
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- Identify an example of alliteration in the example above and explain the purpose for using this
alliteration in this poem. (4)
[Need help?]
The repetition of the "b" sound in "bell beating, beating" is alliteration.
It is an attempt at capturing the sound of the ambulance bell beating, a form of onomatopoeia. It also
creates the repetitive effect of the bell beating over and over again.
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- Why does the poet describe the red lights atop the ambulance as "one ruby flare" and
"pulsing . . . like an artery"? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet speaks powerfully here about life and death. Life is represented by the heart, beating and
pulsing the blood through the arteries to the body.
The ambulance itself also represents life. It too is a metaphorical heartbeat of promise to the accident
victims. Its red life atop the roof which flashes a warning represents this heart -- beating, pulsing the
promise of life to the victims.
The use of this image is also meant to bring about an awareness of the victims themselves, their arteries
slashed open in the accident, their blood pulsing out of their bodies to form pools on the street.
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"The ambulance at top speed floating down
Past beacons and illuminated clocks
Wings in a heavy curve, dips down,
And brakes speed, entering the crowd."
- The poet uses the image of some large white bird -- like a huge white goose -- landing at the scene
of the accident. What words imply this image? Why would the poet choose the image of a
bird? (6)
[Need help?]
The words which conjure up the image of the large white bird are: "floating down"; "wings in a
heavy curve", "dips down, brakes speed, entering the crowd".
To be more exact, this is the image of a large white waterbird floating in to land on a lake where there is
a crowd of other waterbirds already swimming there.
Why does he use this image? In a sense, it's a very surreal image -- a dreamlike image -- of the large
white ambulance trying to come to rest in an area which is teeming with interested spectators (the other
waterbirds).
If you've ever seen a scene of a large duck coming into land on a frozen lake, you'll understand. The other
waterbirds are milling about, getting in the way, and usually the landing bird slithers over the ice, knocking
all the other birds out of the way.
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- What are the "beacons and illuminated clocks"? (2)
[Need help?]
This is a reference to various beacons like traffic lights, as well as the clocks atop shop entrances.
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"Stretchers are laid out, the mangled lifted
And stowed into the little hospital."
- How serious was this accident? Support your answer by providing evidence from throughout the
poem. (6)
[Need help?]
The accident is very serious indeed. It would seem that there are no survivors. Just have a look at the
following words which indicate that the bodies of the victims were too seriously mangled and crushed to
have survived:
- "stowed into the little hospital";
- "Then the bell tolls once";
- "the doors, an afterthought, are closed";
- "empty husks of locusts".
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- Why does the poet call the ambulance "the little hospital"? (2)
[Need help?]
The ambulance is exactly that: a little hospital that is designed to take the sick and wounded to the big
hospital.
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"Then the bell, breaking the hush, tolls once,
And the ambulance with its terrible cargo
Rocking, slightly rocking, moves away,
As the doors, an afterthought, are closed."
- Why would the poet choose the word "tolls" to describe the ambulance bell
ringing? (2)
[Need help?]
When a bell "tolls", it is usually in memory of the dead.
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- What do the words "its terrible cargo" tell us about the outcome of this auto
wreck? (4)
[Need help?]
"Terrible" means "something that fills one with terror". The word is used here to indicate that
the dead bodies are so dreadfully mangled that they are like pictures taken from a horror movie.
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- Why are the ambulance doors closed only as "an afterthought"? (4)
[Need help?]
The ambulance doors are usually closed so that the sick or wounded inside the vehicle will come to no
harm during the journey to the hospital. In this case, however, the victims are all dead. It matters not,
therefore, whether the doors of the ambulance are open or closed.
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