Both Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" and Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool" make use of their limitations to achieve creative effects and create new possibilities: the former by utilizing the limited rhyme scheme of a villanelle and the latter by utilizing the rhythm of jazz music. To begin with, in "Do Not Go Gentle," Thomas chooses two extremely powerful lines (the first two) to be repeated throughout the poem. By doing this, he cleverly utilizes a rhyme scheme which seems very limiting, achieving a very empowering effect and thus creating a memorable anthem. Also, by overcoming this limitation, he is urging us (his father in his case) to defy the limitation of death itself: the repeated alternation between the lines "Do not go gentle into that good night" and "Rage, rage against the dying of the light" does not sound tedious and boring at all--as a repeated chant should—but instead very reassuring and inspiring. In "We Real Cool," Brooks utilizes a rhythm of a different art form to make the poem sound fresh and to portray a very clear image and story: jazz rhythm. By opting to have the rhyming syllables in the middle of each line (cool-school, late-straight, sin-gin, June-soon) and placing the enjambment of "we" at the end, she succeeds in creating a swing rhythm of a jazz tune with the format of a different art form, that is, a poem, and transcending the limitation of its rhyme scheme. This "tune" emphasizes the themes and setting of the poem effectively: hearing the poem, we picture a pool hall where this group of seven teenagers are hanging out, acting all "cool," drinking thinned gin and skipping school--all of this accompanied by jazz music from the juke box. In conclusion, looking at these two poems, we can see how the limitations of the poem structure themselves could be utilized to achieve creative possibilities.

With limitations embedded in literature, possibilities can be made when contemplating the text, opening imagination conceived by humans. For example, a part of Jabberwocky written by Lewis Caroll shows the readers the limitation which revolves around diction. Unbeknownst to the readers, such words as "Twas," "brillig, "borogoves" and "raths" make the readers feel very limited as they cannot think of an accurate definition of each unfamiliar word, resulting in the readers' feeling that the poem itself is restricted with strange vocabulary. Thus, the readers are stuck with it with no hope of arriving at the conclusion as to what the author of the poem is trying to illustrate. However, as the readers reread this stanza again and again, it seems that they are encouraged to create their meanings without having to rely on how each word is translated; it is the effect of possibilities that broaden the readers' horizon, which is an imagination. Some may take it as a nonsense poem as it randomly says this and that. Some may consider it to be fantasy. Some may think this is a horror. As imagination is prompted due to the fact that the author makes use of atypical words to suggest limitations, this can be considered a challenge of the human mind as they finally break through obstacles to come up with their own definitions. The next example showing limitations which in turn will produce possibilities is the excerpt from Defender of the Faith as follows: "I've got relatives in St. Louis...God, Sergeant, that'd mean an awful lot to me." Stated by Grossbart, this statement implicitly illustrates the limitation where Nathan Marx is forced to sympathize with Grossbart's request; it is such a closeness to the readers and also to Marx because we are restricted to such a claim and a request with no other meanings in this statement on the first hand. Moreover, we believe that closed response—we first think Grossbart will do what he has requested right away if he is permitted to go outside of the camp. However, with such limitations, the readers may feel vague and unclear whether Grossbart's word is truth or not. As this finally dawns on the readers, they are open to predicting the future after Marx allows Grossbart along with his friends to leave camp; possibilities occur. And this leads to various interpretations as to how the story will turn out, depending on how the readers predict the possibilities that can happen in just only one statement. In conclusion, although limitations may hinder the readers from arriving at the conclusion and imagining what will happen next, limitations can subtly challenge readers to consider possibilities embedded in them, opening the readers to create a world of their own.

Undoubtedly, it can be argued that there is an array of limitations binding literature from absolute freedom of lexical navigation, however, the play "Misreadings" and the astonishingly short and concise poem "We Real Cool" serve as remarkable examples of how literature makes use of its limitations and give birth to possibilities. These two works, in particular, masterfully free themselves from the shackle of words—particle of thoughts with imposing preconceptions and attached meaning—and challenge our minds.

As a written work, "Misreadings" consists of meticulously chosen words, these words, though crafted carefully with the intent to provoke thoughts, are restricting in and of themselves. "I live in worlds made by words" claims Dr Ruth; with this one sentence of seven words alone, the playwright is able to characterise Dr Ruth, who, as a result, becomes a certainty—a limitation. Nevertheless, owing precisely to the fact that these words are binding and, in a sense, permanent, possibilities are created. That is, human beings are spontaneous; we respond to stimuli, both physically and mentally, almost instantly. Therefore, we lack the benefit of permanence—the advantage of responses that can be withheld, delayed, or reconsidered even. Words in literature may be revisited, edited, or quoted with accuracy at almost any time; this is why we can take literature as life lessons and ponder upon many other possible responses to various stimuli—a privilege that does not exist in our life.

Almost similarly, "We Real Cool" is bound by words. "Left school. We," reads one of the poem's rather scarce lines. With words come the denotation, i.e. dictionary definition, and the connotation, i.e. particular feelings assigned to each word according to each culture and society. Upon first glance, readers instantly pick up the fact that these youths "Left school," which most likely implies that they must be up to no good. However, for more careful and imaginative readers, given how incredibly short the poem is, these words lead to endless possibilities of assumption. That is, one may wonder why these youths left school. Where do they live? In what type of environment does this take place and so on and so forth. Indeed, literature opens up imagination.

In conclusion, despite being confined in the restricted realm of words with limited meanings, literature is able to lead us to astounding possibilities through its quality of being permanent and, ironically, limited. Perhaps this is possible thanks to the boundless vastness of human minds, too.

Poetry is often regarded as a stricter art form than prose as it has regulations for the poets to use a certain patter, a certain rhyme scheme, a certain number of syllables. Yet, within these limitations, there is a possibility to play around and come up with very creative literary works.

The poems of Gwendolyn Brooks "We Real Cool" and Dylan Thomas "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" illustrate the possibilities in limitations very well. Brooks uses only four stanzas with one subtitle to convey the idea of a group of young people out of school and enjoying their time. The limitations in this poem is, of course, how Brooks used no more than four words in a line and still painted a vivid picture in the readers' mind. However, the possibility of using the poem art form is that Brooks managed to use an enjambed "we" at the end of each line excerpt the last one. The enjambments give a sense of ambiguity, leading to various hypotheses regarding the function of "we." It is possible to interpret that "we" is an enclosement, to convey the sense that this group of young people will stay a gang whatever their actions are until they die from each other. Death is then the limit of the possibilities laid out.

Continuing with the theme of death, "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" also discusses death and uses the strict rhyme scheme of a villanelle as its limitation. The villanelle here can be seen as a limitation so the poet cannot use words freely, but it can also be seen as a possibility to truly give meaning to death, as death is limiting.

As seen from the two works mentioned above, limitations is actually the source of possibility. Without limitations, there would be no possibilities.