Found Poem #2

Alone in the Nation of Two

Howard:
Only one thing counted-
The nation of two,
and when that nation ceased to be,
I became what I am and will be.

A stateless person.

Kraft:
When my wife died, I had no allegiance...
to ANYTHING on earth. I too...
was a meaningless fragment of a nation of two...

I discovered something I had never known before,
what a true friend
was.
I throw my lot in with you gladly, friend.
Nothing else interests and attracts me.
With your permission, my paints and
I would like to go wherever
Fate takes you next.

Howard:
This is a true friendship indeed.

I used quotes from pages 43, 156, and 157. I identified the speaker of each quote. The main poetic techniques I used were rhyming and starting a good amount of my lines with the same thing, such as "I". The lines that are supposed to rhyme have the rhyming word(s) underlined so it's easier to tell. I also tried to make "nation of two" stand out by making them italicized. What I mainly tried focusing on was being alone in the nation of two, something Kraft and Howard both shared. Howard said that after his wife left him, he felt like he was a stateless person. Kraft called himself a meaningless fragment of a nation of two. To me, both of those things sound very similar to each other. And, to add on to that, Howard calls it a true friendship, because they can relate to each other, and even though Kraft was some-what in on the plan to arrest Howard, I think he honestly did feel like they were good friends. I think what he said about following Howard wherever fate takes him was a sincere statement by Kraft. In my opinion, friendship and being alone are a good part of this book. Being alone also goes along with the main theme of this book, which is identity. Howard and Kraft both lost their wives, who truly loved, and they lost that portion of their life which was having a nation of two with the person you love. They were left there, by themselves, like they didn't even belong. In my opinion, this portion of the book is really important. It caught my attention.