Who Burns for the Perfection of Paper

Like many other poets of his generation, Espada writes almost always in free verse. Instead of rhyme and formal meter, he relies on his awareness of the natural rhythm created by word stress and repeated sounds, such as those in “that manufactured legal pads” (Line 2), with its stressed/unstressed syllable pattern and repeated ‘a’ sound mimicking the repetitive nature of the work. Alongside these sound effects, he also takes full advantage of the different lengths of line to generate an almost documentary, reel-by-reel quality to the narratives his poems create. This is evident in “Who Burns” through the progression of images from the factory to the stacked paper, then to the fingers of the worker. When he wants to switch focus or angle, Espada uses a line break. Doing this after only two or three words is the equivalent of a film-maker’s rapid cut, while a longer line length has the effect of a prolonged focus. Though some lines are short, each one has a clear and definite image that adds to the narrative. This means the poem has none of the weightless, drifting feel that some free verse has.