Looking at the first verse.... you can find alliteration in the long "o" sound : poem, diagnosis, toes.
Then she picks up the short "o" sound : forehead and concentration. Last she uses the neutral "o" : enough, mother and love.
There isn't assonance in verse one, but there is in 2.
The whole poem is a metaphor...what is she comparing her poetry to? Now.... <G> you work on the rest and then repost..We will be happy to give you further suggestions.
I have this assignment that I am working on I am little confuse with it is help please. I have found that the poem uses both just explain how it is used like assonance is the repetition of vowel-sounds so look for the vowels in the poem. For example poems, live, sad, diagnosis, they, grew, toes, etc. Then explain about the alliteration, which is the repetition of consonants that are next to each other. For example, smile, smile, they are not pigs, they are not even fish. The work they is use often in throughout the poem. Next explain that the poem is absence of a regular rhythm and explain if it is formal or free verse base on the definition on p. 310-11. Then the last thing is to look for metaphors and explain those. Then you are done.
This is the poem the I am working with : Stillborn by Sylvia Plath
These poems do not live: it's a sad diagnosis.
They grew their toes and fingers well enough,
Their little foreheads bulged with concentration.
If they missed out on walking about like people
It wasn't for any lack of mother-love.
O I cannot explain what happened to them!
They are proper in shape and number and every part.
They sit so nicely in the pickling fluid!
They smile and smile and smile at me.
And still the lungs won't fill and the heart won't start.
They are not pigs, they are not even fish,
Though they have a piggy and a fishy air --
It would be better if they were alive, and that's what they were.
But they are dead, and their mother near dead with distraction,
And they stupidly stare and do not speak of her.
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