Question

The eighth stanza of Robert Lowell’s poem “For the Union Dead” begins: “The monument sticks like a fishbone / in the city's throat.” The two poetic devices used in these lines from the poem are _____.
hyperbole and simile
metaphor and imagery
imagery and hyperbole
simile and personification

Answer 1

The eighth stanza of Robert Lowell’s poem “For the Union Dead” begins: “The monument sticks like a fishbone / in the city's throat.” The two poetic devices used in these lines from the poem are simile and personification. It uses the descriptive word which is like and the city is described to be a living thing or a human with the throat.

Answer 2

Answer: Simile and personification.

Simile refers to a literary device in which two things are directly compared. Most of the time, this comparison is made by using a word such as "like." In the poem, the author compares the monument to a fishbone.

Personification is also a literary device, in which the author gives human characteristics to an inanimate object, an animal, a natural phenomena or a setting. In this case, the author refers to the "city's throat." By claiming that the city has a throat, he is using personification.