
The speaker describes her family at a lake in Michigan. In the poem, the speaker looks back on the picture using their imagery. She looks at a photograph and recollects how wonderful and how important her family is by her language and her imagery. Throughout the poem, she begins to recollect the personalities and memories of her grandparents and her brother by just looking at the picture. The day before he rode his first horse, alone.ĭove’s poem, Fifth Grade Autobiography, talks about the nostalgic childhood of the most important people in her life. Into the ice chest, sun through the trees Sits squared on his head so the raccoon tailįlounces down the back of his sailor suit. With my grandparents at a lake in Michigan. This throws the reader off, since they won’t have a rhythm to count to, but it still relates to the meaning of passion in the poem. One line would have 5 syllables, and the next one would have 7, and so on. Instead, each of her lines has different number of syllables. In Dove’s poem, she doesn’t have a consistent meter. With rhythm and rhyme, this phrase would be irrelevant and could be a completely different theme, but without rhythm and rhyme, the topic can stand out, without the help of sound devices. The way she puts out anything can happen gives the reason what the poem is about. The second sentence (lines 3-5) shows another idea, but it is irrelevant at first, but when the audience can see that “Anything can happen”, the audience can see how it connects. She goes on with one thing, but then she transfers into another thing. The way she separates the first sentence, “After all, there’s no need to say anything at first.”, she interrupts the third line. In the poem, Dove separates the sentences, giving it a bit of effect. All poems do not need a rhythm in order to make sense. In the poem, there is no natural rhyme scheme or rhythm, but it helps the poem stand out. Because of this, there is a reason why the poem has no natural rhyme or rhythm.
RITA DOVE FAMOUS POEMS FREE
The poem is a free verse poem, letting the low of the words travel down on the paper. Instead, the way the words are set up leaves a passionate meaning behind the poem, making an emphasis on the subject without the use of sound devices.

Rita Dove’s poem, “Flirtation”, there is no natural rhyme or rhythm. The prose poetry here makes the message clear with the details presented and the theme implied in the last two lines of the poem. The bean that is sprouting inside the boy is representing the end of the boy’s life, as “the vines curling around the sockets and locking them shut”. The use of prose poetry here helps connect the details of the poem with the overall meaning. Dove asks a question in the 1st line, connecting with the boy on the moon, and in the last line, connects the beans with the bean inside of the boy. The last two lines of the poem gives the audience wonder. However, this ends with the third stanza with the sentence ending. Doing this help progresses the poem in a clear manner and the audience can see how the sentences connect. As the reader observes, the ideas from the previous stanza connect with the ideas of the current stanza. The split here makes readers wonder why would the poet split ideas of each stanza. After that sentence, the rest of the stanza talks about a boy on a moon, but the sentence ends in the next stanza. The first sentence, “Low-rent balconies stacked to the sky,” gives a pause to the thought, as if that sentence should belong with the previous stanza.

In the next stanza, the first line represents a sentence, but the next two lines are not ended in the same stanza it is ended in the stanza after. “The alley smell of cops, pistols bumping their thighs, each chamber steeled with a slim blue bullet.” Here, the poet completely stops at the thought of the description of the neighborhood, and then transform into the buildings in the neighborhood. In the first sentence, she says that “In the old neighborhood, each funeral parlor is more elaborate than the last.” The next sentence takes up the next two lines of the 1st stanza. She pauses every other stanza in other to emphasize the meaning behind it. In the first stanza, she separates each two lines with sentences. There are many reasons why Dove writes this poem as a prose, but the most main reason is to emphasize the meaning of the poem. There are many different types of verse form, but Dove writes this poem as a prose poem. In Dove’s poem, Teach Us to Number Our Days, Dove uses verse form to convey her message. The patroller, disinterested, holds all the beans. The alleys smell of cops, pistols bumping their thighs,Įach chamber steeled with a slim blue bullet.Īround the sockets and locking them shut. In the old neighborhood, each funeral parlor
