Paradox

A paradox is a statement which contains apparently opposing or incongrous elements which, when read together, turn out to make sense. Emily Dickinson's poem "My Life Closed Twice Before its Close" contains a paradox in both the title and the first line. She says:
My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me. . . .

This statement is paradoxical in that there are separate meanings for the words "closed" and "close"--Dickinson has had experiences in her life which she feels to be equivalent to life's true closing, death itself.

Another example can be found in Mary Jo Salter's "Welcome to Hiroshima" when she says:

Passing by
the Peace Park's floral hypocenter (where
how bravely, or with what mistaken cheer,
humanity erased its own erasure). . . .

[Laura Gruber]