I need help identifying poetic devices

Question

To tell the truth, those brick Housing Authority buildings

For whose loveliness no soul had planned,

Like random dominoes stood, worn out and facing each other,

Creating the enclosure that was our home.

Long basement corridors connected one house to another

And had a special smell, from old bicycles and baby carriages

In the storage rooms. The elevators

Were used by kissing teenagers.

The playground—iron swingchains, fences, iron monkey bars,

Iron seesaw handles, doubtless now rusted—

Left a strong iron smell on my hands and in the autumn air

And rang with cries. To me it is even precious

Where they chased the local Mongoloid, yelling “Stupid Joey! Stupid Joey!”

Now I’ve said everything nice I can about this.

Answer 1

For this response, I am analyzing the first two stanzas and how the poetic devices contribute to the overall tone of the poem. I've bolded the devices used. I encourage you, Marina, to use this as an exemplar to mimic when analyzing the third and fourth stanzas. Feel free to respond, and I will give you feedback on your analysis!

The speaker of the poem uses a sarcastic tone to exemplify his/her disdain for where s/he grew up--the housing projects. The opening "To tell the truth," introduces a claim of honestly, but suggesting the projects contain a "loveliness" that "no soul had planned" indicates how the home features no love at all (lines 1-2). S/he uses the simile of "random dominoes" to paint the image of a housing unit where no stylistic design approach was taken followed by words like "worn out" and "enclosure" (lines 3-4). This imagery creates a contrast to the word loveliness.

In the second stanza, the speaker continues with selective word choice, describing the smell as "special" which draws from the word's connotation instead of denotation (line 5). In this context, the word special elicits a sense of disgust over tenderness. The word "old" preceding childlike items such as bicycles and baby carriages contributes to this imagery of a place that contains no loveliness whatsoever and an overall gloomy mood.