“Advice to a Prophet” by Richard Wilbur [p. 130-131]

In this poem, the speaker is a person addressing the prophet. This poem most likely occurs before the prophet enters the city. It is the speaker’s response to the prophet’s action. The speaker carries a tone of indifference and knowledge at the same time. The speaker has an attitude that he already knows what the prophet would say. The poem carries a regular rhyme pattern of abba and every stanza is four lines long. This consistency gives the poem a strict persona. It would relate to the message of the poem since mass destruction is a serious subject. One of the biggest images used is one of destruction. The use of heavy words, such as “death”, “soul”, and “cold”, gives the speaker a yelling or argumentative tone. It further shows the speaker as somewhat disrespectful of the prophet. The prophet is a faceless character in this poem. His existence is only through the speaker’s reference to the prophet. It leads to question who the prophet is. From reading the poem, two references to God are made. The first one, the speaker sets the prophet as a missionary of God. He is shown as one of those people who would yell the do-this -or-you’ll-burn-in-hell speech in the populated area of the streets. The second reference is the “dove’s return” from the Noah’s Ark story. It alludes to previous messages of God. In this poem, the use of “we” and “us” hints that the speaker is mixed into the ordinary populace. Either the speaker is acting as the spokesperson or the speaker is all people in a way. My favorite part is when the “worldless rose” is mentioned in the beginning of the last verse. The contrast of the image is chilling.