Analysis

Right from the title the reader understand the poet and his identity are the focus of the coming lines. The alliterative sound of the plosive sound “p” connects poet and his ordinary production. The text doesn’t develop a specific pattern; it rather creates a “crescendo”: from the first two lines that assert a statement about the qualities of the real poet, one works in a “proper” way the text develops moving from a group of three lines (3-5) where the reader is informed about what the proper poet of the composition did with language. His lines elicited reflection in a pleasant way from the tercet the poem waves to a quatrain that has the specific function to make clean the difference between ordinary speakers and the poet: he can say what the ordinary people can’t. his due of reality is  clear in lines 6-7-8-9.

Then come the sestet where his skills and competences are conveyed through a metaphor where the proper poet is just opposed to St. Francis , who was able to communicate with what generally is impossible for the human being. As did the Saint, the proper poet knows how to speak through images and therefore he is really able to visualize reality. The simile with “birds” recalls  St. Francis special gift, one that probably comes from God.

The poem concludes hi climax focusing the attention on a question simply consisting of one word which is symbolically a way to highlight that the nature of poetry as well as its material is made of words.

The key position of the question concludes the poets, Roger McGough argumentation with and explanation. The proper poet is such because paradoxally he “ could… make words talk”.