In "The Cockroach," Canadian poet Kevin Halligan uses the tale of a wandering roach to wryly explore the difficulty of finding purpose in life. The poem's speaker watches idly as a cockroach crawls around their room. The cockroach forges a straight path at first, but then it seems to lose confidence: it spins in circles, rambles around, climbs a shelf and looks stumped. The speaker feels this bug's indecision and perplexity as a mirror of their own situation: perhaps the speaker, too, is little more than an aimless bug trying to figure out what on earth it's doing. This poem, which takes the form of a sonnet, first appeared in Halligan's 2009 collection Utopia.

• Read the full text of “The Cockroach”

• “The Cockroach” Summary

• “The Cockroach” Themes

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    Aimlessness, Confusion, and Purpose

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-14

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Cockroach”

  • Lines 1-4

    I watched a ...
    ... and the door,

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 5-9

    But soon he ...
    ... worsened over time.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 10-14

    After a while, ...
    ... I recognized myself.

    

    

    

    

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• “The Cockroach” Symbols

  • 

    The Cockroach

    Where this symbol appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-14

• “The Cockroach” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

  • Anthropomorphism

    

    

    

    

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    Where anthropomorphism appears in the poem:

    • Lines 3-11

  • Imagery

    

    

    

    

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    Where imagery appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-2: “a giant cockroach start to pace, / Skirting a ball of dust that rode the floor”
    • Lines 5-6: “he turned to jog in crooked rings, / Circling the rusty table leg and back”
    • Line 10: “he climbed an open shelf”

  • Caesura

    

    

    

    

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    Where caesura appears in the poem:

    • Line 10: “while, he”
    • Line 11: “stopped. He”
    • Line 13: “to? I”

  • Enjambment

    

    

    

    

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    Where enjambment appears in the poem:

    • Lines 3-4: “trace / A”
    • Lines 8-9: “attack / Of”
    • Lines 12-13: “crime / A”

• “The Cockroach” Vocabulary

  Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

  • Skirting
  • Wainscot
  • Due payment
  • (Location in poem: Lines 1-2: “I watched a giant cockroach start to pace, / Skirting a ball of dust”)

• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Cockroach”

  • Form

  • Meter

  • Rhyme Scheme

• “The Cockroach” Speaker

• “The Cockroach” Setting

• Literary and Historical Context of “The Cockroach”

• More “The Cockroach” Resources

  • External Resources

    • Roaches in Literature — Read about some other literary cockroaches and consider why Halligan might have chosen a cockroach in particular as his subject.

    • Halligan on Cambodia — Read Halligan's essay on his experiences in Cambodia, where he wrote "The Cockroach."

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