“At the Un-National Monument Along the Canadian Border” by William E. Stafford

In the poem “At the Un-National Monument Along The Canadian Border”, William E. Stafford uses personification and a creative rhyme scheme with an appreciative and sensitive tone to teach the reader to value and honor simple places and sites of nature that have nothing to do with war. In the first stanza the author says “the only heroic thing is the sky” which shows how something so simple can provide for many things in nature. Also, the word “sky” rhymes with the last word in the sentence, “where the unknown soldier did not die”. A soldier is a heroic figure so by rhyming these two letters it is comparing the two. By comparing the two, the author is showing how a simple place should be appreciated just as much as a battlefield. Stafford uses personification and a creative rhyme scheme which shows the importance of a simple scene of nature and how people only recognize places where wars and battles take place and never take the time to recognize simplicity.