Rafael Campo’s poem “The mental status exam” discusses the mental status examinations given to people in order to determine their level of mental and cognitive functioning, an examination which Campo would be familiar with due to his being a doctor in addition to being a poet. However, Campo does not aim to take mental status examinations seriously. Instead, “The mental status exam” aims to poke fun at the silliness of the questions that comprise these tests and the absurdity of the concept in general. Campo utilizes the English sonnet form, also known as the Shakespearean sonnet, and other poetic devices and techniques in order to comment of the absurdity and silliness of using examinations in order to apply order to something as chaotic and varied as the human mind. The sonnet form has a rich history in the Western poetic…show more content… The seventh line also contains a break from the structure in that it is eleven syllables, though that may just be to preserve unity with the seventh line and the fifth line, which have the same end rhyme. What is notable about these two lines is that they are the first two complete sentences in a poem that makes liberal use of the caesura – a pause of break in the middle of a line of poetry that is usually created through the use of punctuation – which may emphasize the random or disordered nature of the mind. There is no set structure to the mind and thoughts cannot always fit neatly into ten syllable lines. The sentences and thoughts often either run from one line to another or stop in the middle of a line completely and only rarely (about three instances out of fourteen) are single lines also complete