“Dark City”

By Robert Berold

Robert Berold on High Street, Grahamstown, September 2001.

Photo by Stan Galloway. Please do not use without permission.

The poem “Dark City” can be found in The Lava of This Land, page 231, or The Fires of the Dead, page 45, where it is section IV of a longer version.

Discussion starters:

How would you characterize the tone of the poem?

How does the third line, beginning “red with carnage,” change the mood of the first two lines?

What does the second stanza imply about the first stanza?

What significance do you find in the image of the praying mantis?

The final stanza addresses the reader, “you,” and “your god” (with lowercase “g”); what does this do to the effectiveness of the poem?

What are the “splintered darknesses” referred to in the last line?

Created by Stan Galloway, 11 January 2002. Send comments to sgallowa@bridgewater.edu.