Tear it Down

“Tear It Down” is written in free verse—a poetic form where the lines have no consistent rhyme or meter. In free verse poetry, though there is no limiting structure, craftsmanship and the utilization of specific poetic conventions—imagery, allusion, metaphor—are still apparent. Poets toil to find the correct syntax (the way they structure their sentences, or lines) and diction (specific vocabulary choices) to make their writing work to whatever effect they are trying to produce.

Gilbert believed that fixation on form produced inadequate poetry. He thought that on some level all poetry needed to be concerned with form, but that a preoccupation with the technical aspects of a poem inhibited the poem itself. Gilbert was more concerned with content, or subject(s) of a poem, and the feelings the poem created and invoked. This is evident in “Tear It Down” through the specific verbiage Gilbert uses.

The poem is one stanza consisting of 18, unrhymed lines.

Gilbert uses first person narrative voice (also called point of view or