Gioia's Perspective on Beauty: The Imagery within "Words" Benjamin Dinh College

“Words”, written by Dana Gioia, is a beautiful concoction of elements that are crucial in composing a poem. Poetry is considered a form of art, as it incorporates different elements into it, which differentiates it from traditional text. When people hear of the word “poetry,” many instantly correlate the word with a jumble of texts that rhyme. Although rhyming is the most popular element of poetry, it is not the only one. In this poem, the main aspect, imagery, brings to mind an outdoor scenery that has all different types of people in it, as well as the beauty from nature.

Within the context of this poem, many may use words in order to create an image within one’s mind, which brings the beautiful gift poetry brings, which is the power to speak to each individual differently. Gioia, being the narrator of the poem, gives his own subjective view o the role in which words play in our world. Following reading the poem, one may argue that the use of words is very important as it helps for one to articulate an experience to another person. When one ponders the importance of words, many ask the question of what matters? What are the most important ingredients? What is the poem trying to say? Within the poem, Gioia employs imagery and...