Commentary on "Auto Wreck", by Karl Shapiro

This poem is about the time following a car crash, when the ambulance is arriving, and taking the body away. The first stanza concentrates more upon the physical description of the crash, and while there is still emotion in the first stanza, through the use of emotive language, metaphor, and imagery, the second stanza is the stanza that explores the emotions felt after the car crash. Karl Shapiro, the author, starts the poem with an …

…metaphor in the seventh line of the second stanza, "touching a wound". The wound is not real, but caused by the shock of what they have witnessed. The author then compares the car crash to other forms of dying and calls it illogical, and unfair, much worse than other deaths for its randomness. It "spatters" the rules of how to end a story across the "expedient and wicked stones" like blood from the recent accident.