Which of the following lines from birches uses metaphor to create a strong image

What is Poetry

Poetry

Poetry (ancient Greek: ποιεω (poieo) = I create) is an art form in which human language is used for its aesthetic qualities in addition to, or instead of, its notional and semantic content. It consists largely of oral or literary works in which language is used in a manner that is felt by its user and audience to differ from ordinary prose.

It may use condensed or compressed form to convey emotion or ideas to the reader's or listener's mind or ear; it may also use devices such as assonance and repetition to achieve musical or incantatory effects. Poems frequently rely for their effect on imagery, word association, and the musical qualities of the language used. The interactive layering of all these effects to generate meaning is what marks poetry.

Because of its nature of emphasizing linguistic form rather than using language purely for its content, poetry is notoriously difficult to translate from one language into another: a possible exception to this might be the Hebrew Psalms, where the beauty is found more in the balance of ideas than in specific vocabulary. In most poetry, it is the connotations and the "baggage" that words carry (the weight of words) that are most important. These shades and nuances of meaning can be difficult to interpret and can cause different readers to "hear" a particular piece of poetry differently. While there are reasonable interpretations, there can never be a definitive interpretation.

Nature of poetry

Poetry can be differentiated most of the time from prose, which is language meant to convey meaning in a more expansive and less condensed way, frequently using more complete logical or narrative structures than poetry does. This does not necessarily imply that poetry is illogical, but rather that poetry is often created from the need to escape the logical, as well as expressing feelings and other expressions in a tight, condensed manner. English Romantic poet John Keats termed this escape from logic Negative Capability. A further complication is that prose poetry combines the characteristics of poetry with the superficial appearance of prose, such as in Robert Frost's poem, "Home Burial." Other forms include narrative poetry and dramatic poetry, both of which are used to tell stories and so resemble novels and plays. However, both these forms of poetry use the specific features of verse composition to make these stories more memorable or to enhance them in some way.

What is generally accepted as "great" poetry is debatable in many cases. "Great" poetry usually follows the characteristics listed above, but it is also set apart by its complexity and sophistication. "Great" poetry generally captures images vividly and in an original, refreshing way, while weaving together an intricate combination of elements like theme tension, complex emotion, and profound reflective thought. For examples of what is considered "great" poetry, visit the Pulitzer prize and Nobel prize sections for poetry.

The Greek verb ποιεω [poiéo (= I make or create)], gave rise to three words:ποιητης [poiet?s (= the one who creates)], ποιησις [poíesis (= the act of creation)] and ποιημα [poíema (= the thing created)]. From these we get three English words: poet (the creator), poesy (the creation) and poem (the created). A poet is therefore one who creates and poetry is what the poet creates. The underlying concept of the poet as creator is not uncommon. For example, in Anglo-Saxon a poet is a scop (shaper or maker) and in Scots makar.

Sound in poetry

Perhaps the most vital element of sound in poetry is rhythm. Often the rhythm of each line is arranged in a particular meter. Different types of meter played key roles in Classical, Early European, Eastern and Modern poetry. In the case of free verse, the rhythm of lines is often organized into looser units of cadence.

Poetry in English and other modern European languages often uses rhyme. Rhyme at the end of lines is the basis of a number of common poetic forms, such as ballads, sonnets and rhyming couplets. However, the use of rhyme is not universal. Much modern poetry, for example, avoids traditional rhyme schemes. Furthermore, Classical Greek and Latin poetry did not use rhyme. In fact, rhyme did not enter European poetry at all until the High Middle Ages, when it was adopted from the Arabic language. The Arabs have always used rhymes extensively, most notably in their long, rhyming qasidas. Some classical poetry forms, such as Venpa of the Tamil language, had rigid grammars (to the point that they could be expressed as a context-free grammar), which ensured a rhythm.

Alliteration played a key role in structuring early Germanic and English forms of poetry (called alliterative verse), akin to the role of rhyme in later European poetry. The alliterative patterns of early Germanic poetry and the rhyme schemes of Modern European poetry alike both include meter as a key part of their structure, which determines when the listener expects instances of rhyme or alliteration to occur. In this sense, both alliteration and rhyme, when used in poetic structures, help to emphasize and define a rhythmic pattern. By contrast, the chief device of Biblical poetry in ancient Hebrew was parallelism, a rhetorical structure in which successive lines reflected each other in grammatical structure, sound structure, notional content, or all three; a verse form that lent itself to antiphonal or call- and-response performance.

In addition to the forms of rhyme, alliteration and rhythm that structure much poetry, sound plays a more subtle role in even free verse poetry in creating pleasing, varied patterns and emphasizing or sometimes even illustrating semantic elements of the poem. Devices such as alliteration, assonance, consonance, dissonance and internal rhyme are among the ways poets use sound. Euphony refers to the musical, flowing quality of words arranged in an aesthetically pleasing way.

Poetry and form

Compared with prose, poetry depends less on the linguistic units of sentences and paragraphs, and more on units of organisation that are purely poetic. The typical structural elements are the line, couplet, strophe, stanza, and verse paragraph.

Lines may be self-contained units of sense, as in the well-known lines from William Shakespeare's Hamlet:

To be, or not to be: that is the question.

Alternatively a line may end in mid-phrase or sentence:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

this linguistic unit is completed in the next line,

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

This technique is called enjambment, and is used to create a sense of expectation in the reader and/or to add a dynamic to the movement of the verse.

In many instances, the effectiveness of a poem derives from the tension between the use of linguistic and formal units. With the advent of printing, poets gained greater control over the visual presentation of their work. As a result, the use of these formal elements, and of the white space they help create, became an important part of the poet's toolbox. Modernist poetry tends to take this to an extreme, with the placement of individual lines or groups of lines on the page forming an integral part of the poem's composition. In its most extreme form, this leads to the writing of concrete poetry.

Poetry and rhetoric

Rhetorical devices such as simile and metaphor are frequently used in poetry. Indeed, Aristotle wrote in his Poetics that "the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor". However, particularly since the rise of Modernism, some poets have opted for reduced use of these devices, preferring rather to attempt the direct presentation of things and experiences. Other 20th-century poets, however, particularly the surrealists, have pushed rhetorical devices to their limits, making frequent use of catachresis.

History of poetry

Poetry as an art form predates literacy. In preliterate societies, poetry was frequently employed as a means of recording oral history, storytelling (epic poetry), genealogy, law and other forms of expression or knowledge that modern societies might expect to be handled in prose. The Ramayana, a Sanskrit epic which includes poetry, was probably written in the 3rd century BCE in a language described by William Jones as "more perfect than Latin, more copious than Greek and more exquisitely refined than either." Poetry is also often closely identified with liturgy in these societies, as the formal nature of poetry makes it easier to remember priestly incantations or prophecies. The greater part of the world's sacred scriptures are made up of poetry rather than prose.

The use of verse to transmit cultural information continues today. Many English speaking–Americans know that "in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue". An alphabet song teaches the names and order of the letters of the alphabet; another jingle states the lengths and names of the months in the Gregorian calendar. Preliterate societies, lacking the means to write down important cultural information, use similar methods to preserve it.

Some writers believe that poetry has its origins in song. Most of the characteristics that distinguish it from other forms of utterance—rhythm, rhyme, compression, intensity of feeling, the use of refrains—appear to have come about from efforts to fit words to musical forms. However, in the European tradition the earliest surviving poems, the Homeric and Hesiodic epics, identify themselves as poems to be recited or chanted to a musical accompaniment rather than as pure song. Another interpretation, developed from 20th-century studies of living Montenegran epic reciters by Milman Parry and others, is that rhythm, refrains, and kennings are essentially paratactic devices that enable the reciter to reconstruct the poem from memory.

In preliterate societies, all these forms of poetry were composed for, and sometimes during, performance. As such, there was a certain degree of fluidity to the exact wording of poems, given this could change from one performance or performer to another. The introduction of writing tended to fix the content of a poem to the version that happened to be written down and survive. Written composition also meant that poets began to compose not for an audience that was sitting in front of them but for an absent reader. Later, the invention of printing tended to accelerate these trends. Poets were now writing more for the eye than for the ear.

The development of literacy gave rise to more personal, shorter poems intended to be sung. These are called lyrics, which derives from the Greek lura or lyre, the instrument that was used to accompany the performance of Greek lyrics from about the seventh century BCE onward. The Greek's practice of singing hymns in large choruses gave rise in the sixth century BCE to dramatic verse, and to the practice of writing poetic plays for performance in their theatres.

In more recent times, the introduction of electronic media and the rise of the poetry reading have led to a resurgence of performance poetry and have resulted in a situation where poetry for the eye and poetry for the ear coexist, sometimes in the same poem. The late 20th-century rise of the singer-songwriter and Rap culture and the increase in popularity of Slam poetry have led to a renewed debate as to the nature of poetry that can be crudely characterized as a split between the academic and popular views. As of 2005, this debate is ongoing with no immediate prospect of a resolution.

Love poems proliferate now, in weblogs and personal pages, as a new way of expression and liberty of hearts, "I have won many female relations with this valid resource", has said a contemporaneous writer called Federic P. Sabeloteur.

Poetry.org. 13 July 2016

Poetry Terms

Allegory A symbolic narrative in which the surface details imply a secondary meaning. Allegory often takes the form of a story in which the characters represent moral qualities. The most famous example in English is John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, in which the name of the central character, Pilgrim, epitomizes the book's allegorical nature. Kay Boyle's story "Astronomer's Wife" and Christina Rossetti's poem "Up-Hill" both contain allegorical elements.

Alliteration The repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words. Example: "Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood." Hopkins, "In the Valley of the Elwy."

Anapest Two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one, as in com-pre-HEND or in-ter-VENE. An anapestic meter rises to the accented beat as in Byron's lines from "The Destruction of Sennacherib": "And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, / When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee."

Antagonist A character or force against which another character struggles. Creon is Antigone's antagonist in Sophocles' play Antigone; Teiresias is the antagonist of Oedipus in Sophocles' Oedipus the King.

Assonance The repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry or prose, as in "I rose and told him of my woe." Whitman's "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" contains assonantal "I's" in the following lines: "How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, / Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself."

Ballad A narrative poem written in four-line stanzas , characterized by swift action and narrated in a direct style. The Anonymous medieval ballad, "Barbara Allan," exemplifies the genre.

Blank verse A line of poetry or prose in unrhymed iambic pentameter . Shakespeare's sonnets, Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, and Robert Frost's meditative poems such as "Birches" include many lines of blank verse. Here are the opening blank verse lines of "Birches": When I see birches bend to left and right / Across the lines of straighter darker trees, / I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

Connotation The associations called up by a word that goes beyond its dictionary meaning. Poets, especially, tend to use words rich in connotation. Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" includes intensely connotative language, as in these lines: "Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright / Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, / Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Denotation The dictionary meaning of a word. Writers typically play off a word's denotative meaning against its connotations, or suggested and implied associational implications. In the following lines from Peter Meinke's "Advice to My Son" the references to flowers and fruit, bread and wine denote specific things, but also suggest something beyond the literal, dictionary meanings of the words:

Dialogue The conversation of characters in a literary work. In fiction, dialogue is typically enclosed within quotation marks. In plays, characters' speech is preceded by their names.

Diction What is the selection of words in a literary work. A work's diction forms one of its centrally important literary elements, as writers use words to convey action, reveal character, imply attitudes, identify themes, and suggest values. We can speak of the diction particular to a character, as in Iago's and Desdemona's very different ways of speaking in Othello. We can also refer to a poet's diction as represented over the body of his or her work, as in Donne's or Hughes's diction.

Enjambment A run-on line of poetry in which logical and grammatical sense carries over from one line into the next. An enjambed line differs from an end-stopped line in which the grammatical and logical sense is completed within the line. In the opening lines of Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess," for example, the first line is end-stopped and the second enjambed:

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall, Looking as if she were alive. I call That piece a wonder, now....

Figurative language A form of language use in which writers and speakers convey something other than the literal meaning of their words. Examples include hyperbole or exaggeration, litotes or understatement, simile and metaphor, which employ comparison, and synecdoche and metonymy, in which a part of a thing stands for the whole.

Foreshadowing Hints of what is to come in the action of a play or a story. Ibsen's A Doll's House includes foreshadowing as does Synge's Riders to the Sea. So, too, do Poe's "Cask of Amontillado" and Chopin's "Story of an Hour."

Hyperbole A figure of speech involving exaggeration. John Donne uses hyperbole in his poem: "Song: Go and Catch a Falling Star."

Image A concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling, or an idea. Imagery refers to the pattern of related details in a work. In some works one image predominates either by recurring throughout the work or by appearing at a critical point in the plot. Often writers use multiple images throughout a work to suggest states of feeling and to convey implications of thought and action. Some modern poets, such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, write poems that lack discursive explanation entirely and include only images. Among the most famous examples is Pound's poem "In a Station of the Metro":

The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.

Imagery What is the pattern of related comparative aspects of language, particularly of images, in a literary work. Imagery of light and darkness pervade James Joyce's stories "Araby," "The Boarding House," and "The Dead." So, too, does religious imagery.

Irony A contrast or discrepancy between what is said and what is meant or between what happens and what is expected to happen in life and in literature. In verbal irony, characters say the opposite of what they mean. In irony of circumstance or situation, the opposite of what is expected occurs. In dramatic irony, a character speaks in ignorance of a situation or event known to the audience or to the other characters. Flannery O'Connor's short stories employ all these forms of irony, as does Poe's "Cask of Amontillado."

Metaphor A comparison between essentially unlike things without an explicitly comparative word such as like or as. An example is "My love is a red, red rose,"

From Burns's "A Red, Red Rose." Langston Hughes's "Dream Deferred" is built entirely of metaphors. Metaphor is one of the most important of literary uses of language. Shakespeare employs a wide range of metaphor in his sonnets and his plays, often in such density and profusion that readers are kept busy analyzing and interpreting and unraveling them. Compare Simile .

Narrator The voice and implied speaker of a fictional work, to be distinguished from the actual living author. For example, the narrator of Joyce's "Araby" is not James Joyce himself, but a literary fictional character created expressly to tell the story. Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" contains a communal narrator, identified only as "we." See Point of view .

Onomatopoeia The use of words to imitate the sounds they describe. Words such as buzz and crack are onomatopoetic. The following line from Pope's "Sound and Sense" onomatopoetically imitates in sound what it describes:

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw, The line too labors, and the words move slow.

Most often, however, onomatopoeia refers to words and groups of words, such as Tennyson's description of the "murmur of innumerable bees," which attempts to capture the sound of a swarm of bees buzzing.

Personification What is the endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities? An example: "The yellow leaves flaunted their color gaily in the breeze." Wordsworth's "I wandered lonely as a cloud" includes personification.

Point of view The angle of vision from which a story is narrated. See Narrator . A work's point of view can be: first person, in which the narrator is a character or an observer, respectively; objective, in which the narrator knows or appears to know no more than the reader; omniscient, in which the narrator knows everything about the characters; and limited omniscient, which allows the narrator to know some things about the characters but not everything.

Rhyme The matching of final vowel or consonant sounds in two or more words. The following stanza of "Richard Cory" employs alternate rhyme, with the third line rhyming with the first and the fourth with the second:

Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him; He was a gentleman from sole to crown Clean favored and imperially slim.

Rhythm The recurrence of accent or stress in lines of verse. In the following lines from "Same in Blues" by Langston Hughes, the accented words and syllables are underlined:

I said to my baby, Baby take it slow.... Lulu said to Leonard I want a diamond ring

Satire What is a literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies. Swift's Gulliver's Travels is a famous example. Chekhov'sMarriage Proposal and O'Connor's "Everything That Rises Must Converge," have strong satirical elements..

Setting The time and place of a literary work that establish its context. The stories of Sandra Cisneros are set in the American southwest in the mid to late 20th century, those of James Joyce in Dublin, Ireland in the early 20th century.

Simile A figure of speech involving a comparison between unlike things using like, as, or as though. An example: "My love is like a red, red rose."

Stanza A division or unit of a poem that is repeated in the same form--either with similar or identical patterns or rhyme and meter , or with variations from one stanza to another. The stanzas of Gertrude Schnackenberg's "Signs" are regular; those of Rita Dove's "Canary" are irregular.

Style The way an author chooses words, arranges them in sentences or in lines of dialogue or verse, and develops ideas and actions with description, imagery, and other literary techniques. See Connotation , Denotation , Diction , Figurative language , Image , Imagery , Irony , Metaphor , Narrator , Point of view , Syntax , and Tone .

Symbol An object or action in a literary work that means more than itself, that stands for something beyond itself. The glass unicorn in The Glass Menagerie, the rocking horse in "The Rocking-Horse Winner," the road in Frost's "The Road Not Taken"--all are symbols in this sense. "Whose woods these are I think I know."

Theme The idea of a literary work abstracted from its details of language, character, and action, and cast in the form of a generalization. See discussion of Dickinson's "Crumbling is not an instant's Act."

Tone The implied attitude of a writer toward the subject and characters of a work, as, for example, Flannery O'Connor's ironic tone in her "Good Country People." See Irony .

Understatement A figure of speech in which a writer or speaker says less than what he or she means; the opposite of exaggeration. The last line of Frost's "Birches" illustrates this literary device: "One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."

How to Analyze A Poem in 10 Easy Steps

How to Analyze A Poem

Introduction

Okay, so you have to analyze a poem. First, let’s change the word analyze and make it less scary. We prefer the wordapproach because a poem can have different meanings for different readers. As Billy Collins says, you should not be trying to beat a confession out of a poem.

1) Read through at least twice. You will have to read a poem multiple times before even attempting to approach it for deeper meanings. Give yourself a chance to thoroughly and fully experience the poem.

2) Is there a title? Don’t forget to take this into consideration. Readers often skip over a poem’s title, which may contain important clues for understanding the piece. Often the title is an introduction that can guide you; for example, Langston Hughes’ “Mother to Son” immediately lets you know who the speaker of the poem is and to whom she is speaking.

3) Stay calm! If there are any unfamiliar words or even a few foreign terms, don’t panic and don’t obsess. On your first read through, just let them go and try instead to focus on the larger meaning of the poem. On the second and subsequent passes, you should then look up those troublesome words or anything else that is problematic for you.

4) Read it aloud. Yes. You must do this. Poems are meant to be heard. Often you will find that places in the poem that gave you trouble on the page suddenly make sense when read out loud. You may feel silly at first, but soon you’ll be comfortable. (Cats and dogs, by the way, make particularly good audiences...though cats tend to be more critical and may leave at a pivotal point in your performance.) Read in your normal voice. Don’t try to sound like Maya Angelou. Unless you are Maya Angelou.

5) Pay attention to punctuation. Most poems use punctuation to help guide the voice of its reader. You need to pay attention because the end of a line is frequently not the end of a sentence. Consider these lines from Robert Frost’s “Birches”:

When I see birches bend to left and right

Across the lines of straighter darker trees,

I like to think some boy’s been swinging in them.

If you stop reading or pause at the end of the first line, it will sound broken and unnatural. If you read smoothly through, pausing briefly at the comma and making a full stop at the period, the poem will have its proper conversational tone.

6) Try paraphrasing. It may be best for you to write in your own words what the poet is saying in each line of the poem. As you work through it, you’ll see which areas you need to concentrate on. But again, avoid the notion that there is “one true meaning.”

7) Who is the speaker? Remember not to confuse the poet with the “speaker” of the poem. More often than not, the speaker is a character, just like in a novel or a play. Determining who the speaker is will help you approach the work more easily.

8) Be open to interpretation. Give it a chance. For example, William Carlos Williams’ poem “The Red Wheelbarrow” is often dismissed as cryptic, confusing, and ultimately unknowable. But being open to the poet’s intentions can lead you to some interesting ideas and questions (in this case, what is important to life?).

9) There are no useless words. Poets select each and every word carefully. None should be dismissed. Images and symbols all have a purpose in the overall meaning of the poem.

10) Don’t expect a definitive reading. Many poems are intentionally open-ended and refuse to resolve their internal tensions. While it is desirable to understand what a poem is saying, remember that there are approaches and interpretations other than your own.

Reference:

How to Analyze A Poem" eNotes Publishing Ed. Scott Locklear. eNotes.com,

Inc. eNotes.com 17 Jul, 2015 Web.

Question1

Background Information

In Ernest Hemingway's "The Hills are Like White Elephants," Hemingway gives limited details as to what is actually happening in the story. The reader must infer from the text what the actual situation is between the couple. This is typical of Hemingway’s style. He writes in short concise sentence mixed with longer ones to help the flow and readability of the work. He is also known for revealing and developing the plot by what the characters don’t say instead of what they do say.

Questions:

Read the story and then write a response that explains the dramatic situation in this story? In other words, what is happening between the couple?

What details in the short story lead you to believe this?

What do the added connotations to Hemingway's word choice, such as *white elephant* add to the story?

Remember; please feel free to express yourself. Many students find this short story confusing at first, but by using critical thinking skills and also discussing it with your fellow students, you can decipher what is going wrong with this couple.

Question2:

For today's discussion question, you need to first read the material posted under the link for *Poetry*. Next, write a brief response to the following poem. I just want to know your initial response and a brief summary explaining the situation in the poem posted below:

Debbie's Story

I knew what she went through - - perhaps knew more

Than she herself recalled. Her doctors said

Among the many injuries she bore

Where several that could have left her dead - -

Indeed, they don't know why she lived at all.

She went into a shelter, after weeks

Recovering from the wounds got in a fall

Down half a staircase: bones smashed in her cheeks,

About the eyes and neck: a shattered spleen:

A perforated lung: her legs unsteady.

Even after months in rehab, a sheen

Of sweat betrayed lingering pain. Unready

Still to accuse the author of these harms.

She sobbed and smiled, returning to his arms.

Question3:

For today's discussion question, I would like you to analyze or approach the poems for today to find its meaning. The poems are "Richard Cory," "The Ruined Maid," and "Divorce.” These poems are open for interpretation, so please feel free to express your opinions.

Please review the information that I have posted in the Content area, especially the information regarding “How to Analyze a Poem in 10 Easy Steps.”

EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON

Richard Cory

Whenever Richard Cory went down town, We people on the pavement looked at him: He was a gentleman from sole to crown, Clean favored, and imperially slim.

5 And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he uttered pulses when he said, “Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king— 10 And admirably schooled in every grace:

In ne,1 we thought that he was everything To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread; 15 And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head. 1897

THOMAS HARDY

The Ruined Maid

“O ’Melia,2 my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town? And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?”— “O didn’t you know I’d been ruined?” said she.

5 —“You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;3
And now you’ve gay bracelets and bright feathers three!”— “Yes: that’s how we dress when we’re ruined,” said she.

—“At home in the barton4 you said ‘thee’ and ‘thou,’ 10 And ‘thik oon,’ and ‘theäs oon,’ and ‘t’other’; but now

Your talking quite ts ’ee for high compa-ny!”— “Some polish is gained with one’s ruin,” said she.

—“Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak

But now I’m bewitched by your delicate cheek, 15 And your little gloves t as on any la-dy!”—

“We never do work when we’re ruined,” said she.

—“You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
And you’d sigh, and you’d sock;5 but at present you seem To know not of megrims6 or melancho-ly!”—

20 “True. One’s pretty lively when ruined,” said she.

—“I wish I had feathers, a ne sweeping gown, And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!”—

“My dear—a raw country girl, such as you be, Cannot quite expect that. You ain’t ruined,” said she.

1866

BILLY COLLINS

Divorce

Once, two spoons in bed, now tined forks

across a granite table
and the knives they have hired.

2008