"The porpoises" by John Gurney has an interesting beginning "Plutarch would have called it suicide". At first you have no idea what this beginning means, but as you read further you come to comprehend that the writer is referring to the porpoises, and how they led themselves to suicide by drifting to close to the shore. The first ten lines of the poem are generally about how the porpoises came to be stranded and why they were stranded.
The writer creates a sad complexion of words to describe the circumstances; he uses words such as abandoned, beached, squealing and darkness to enforce thi…
