The “26-Day Apocalyptic Diary” is a free-verse diary entry, written by Bryce Goudnicht. This particular poem explores the dynamic and progressive change humans undergo within a short allotment of time. Goudnicht uses a wide range of aspects such as, the poem’s structure, the strategic and technical elements in his writing style, and also the emotional development of the speaker throughout the poem, to illustrate the speaker’s transformation. At first glance, the poem has a noticeably unique structure. Note how each line has one more word than the next, the initial letter in each line progressively going in alphabetical order, and also the literal shape of the poem gradually getting bigger. Each of these elements portrays physical growth.…show more content… It closely follows Erik Erikson’s psychosocial theory, claiming that humans develop in stages beginning at infancy and continuing into late adulthood. The eight stages hope, will, purpose, competence, fidelity, love, care, and wisdom all play a role in this poem. With each stage the individual is supposed to master each new challenge. Failure to do so could ultimately result in a psychosocial crisis. The first four lines exemplify the speaker’s hope stage. He/she begins to write with a prospective approach. The writer states a simple “Aloha” in line one, and a reassuring “Don’t Panic”, in line four. As the poem progresses, in between lines nine and seventeen, the speaker mentions trying to stay alive and how they were using writing as their motivational drive. This could be viewed as the speaker’s will and purpose. The speaker has seemingly mastered hope, will, and purpose at this point. Line eighteen best portrays the competence and fidelity stage. In this line the speaker begins to question their identity and also his/her ability to pull through. Now the speaker is beginning to have doubts and it is turning into what is known as a psychosocial crisis. The last three stages of emotional growth are love, care, and wisdom and these three are also known to be developed during the adulthood stage. These can be found in the last seven lines. The speaker begins
