“Occupation” by Eliza Griswold

Eliza Griswold use rhyme in her poem “Occupation.” The rhymes in the poem give a continuous reading format whereby any reader is convinced to continue reading. This is a repetition of similar sound in two or more words, most likely at the end of each line. This creates rhythm in a poem. Internal rhyme refers to words which rhyme within the lines. “Dead” and “unfed” in the fifth line have internal rhyme. The first rhyming words are denoted by a, followed by b, and so on. For instance, in this poem, the rhyming words are “feet”, “heat” and “bed”, “unfed”, “twentyfold” and “sold”, “alone” and “stone”. The rhyme scheme is therefore aabbbbacc. The rhyme makes this poem more enjoyable and gives the reader a catching tone right from the beginning. The rhyme links each sentence to the other giving a continuous story and the theme of the poem.

Diction can be found in these two sentences: “…………women’s flesh now worth its flesh in tin”, and, “a woman then was worth her weight in stone”. These two sentences are used to describe how much a woman was worth back then and in the present day. Sometime back, she was worth nothing that the comparison is like a stone that is heavy but in the present day she is worth almost nothing that is being compared to tin that is very light in weight. Also I will like to point out the title of the poem. ‘Occupation’ has some meanings that relate to each other. One of the meanings is the occupation that women in Kabul have access to and that is prostitution. This is a career for them as they are helpless and hopeless in anything else that life has to offer. “Occupation” also defines the way the Americans have occupied the activities and the land of the Afghanistan people which ends in the women of this place helpless and without options of surviving other than prostitution. This is how Eliza Griswold uses diction in order to express a meaning in a way to attract the reader or to make the poem more interesting.