Is life full of blissful, entertaining times? Or is it an overrated stretched journey to death? Michael Schmidt fills us in on his own opinions of life, through his exceptionally redolent poem "The Pond." "The Pond" is creation which through, Michael intends to take us through a journey into his own world and deepest thoughts through precise diction, language techniques, and sound devices as well as syntax, tense, rhythm and the enormous aid of symbolism. Through this poem, Michael Schmidt expresses his negative and grim view upon one's life, and how it only gets worse.

Symbolism plays a key part in this poem; which Schmidt used transfer his feelings into images that can penetrate into our minds and help us enter the atmosphere of the poem. "As I grew older, so the carp grew large." Here Schmidt uses the fish to symbolize his hopes and dreams, so as...