Strategy Response

Strategy Response: Line Placement/poem's format, Rhyme Scheme
Piece: "Myth

I absolutely love this piece of Natasha Tretheway's work. Like most of the poems in her collection, the form and format of the work is rather complex, and this complexity adds to the overall impact of the poem. Here, Tretheway works to produce a poem that can be read forwards and backwards. She also does this in a way that keeps the comprehensiveness and coherency of the poem in tact. Just coming up with lines and the desired formatting of a piece can be difficult for a poet, but Tretheway is able to formulate a design in which her lines can operate no matter how the piece is organized. I believe that arranging the verses in any order would still allow the piece to be read beautifully. To test this theory, I arranged a few lines myself, randomly:

You back into morning. Sleep heavy, turning,
I make between my slumber and my waking,
not to let go. You'll be dead again tomorrow.

My eyes open, I find you do not follow.
But in dreams you live, So I try taking.
It's as if you slipped through some rift, a hollow.

Still the lines work to deliver the poem beautifully and vividly. I love how she is able to keep the descriptive details of the poem fresh in lieu of the restrictions she's placed upon her self. Not only is the poem restricted in its format, but also in its rhyme scheme: abc, abc, dbc : cbd, cba, cba. I believe that what I admire most, is the way Trethewey is able to conduct a poem limited by construction and rhyme scheme, and yet still presents us with a piece that is comprehensible and descriptively vivid.