Welcome to the land of symbols, imagery, and wordplay. Before you travel any further, please know that there may be some thorny academic terminology ahead. Never fear, Shmoop is here. Check out our...
Free VerseFree verse is a term used to describe a poem that doesn't have a regular rhythm or rhyme structure. That doesn't mean that there isn't any structure at all, but that the structure can't b...
We think our speaker sounds like a scientist, an explorer with a job to do. Check out how she cuts off her lines. Every idea is broken up into short, clipped phrases. It's almost like each thing is...
Bear with us if this seems a little spacey, but we think the sound of this poem imitates the breathing of a scuba diver. You know that sound you hear in a movie when someone is diving, or maybe wea...
On the one hand, this title accurately describes what's going on in the poem. This realistic description is important. Whatever else is happening on a symbolic level, this is a adventure about some...
Strong Images, Political MessagesThis poem deals with big, beautiful images of an underwater dive. It spends a lot of time on the details, laying out the scene, showing us the fish and the weeds an...
Base Camp (4) The main story in this poem is pretty easy to keep up with. You have to do some work to figure out what else Rich might be referring to here, but all in all, this shouldn't be too tough.
The cool thing about this poem, is that you can imagine it in just about any setting you want. We think that this poem could be easily set in a cartoon world. Did you ever see Mary Poppins, where e...
Rich was selected by another famous poet, W.H. Auden, as the winner of the Yale Younger Poets Prize. And she was only 22 at the time. (Source)In 1997, Rich turned down the prestigious National Meda...
GNo sex here. You could pretty much make a Disney cartoon about this, like maybe a sad and creepy version of The Little Mermaid. Sharp eyes will notice that the word "breasts" does show up here. Bu...
Pop CultureJacques Cousteau (8) – Have you seen nature documentaries on PBS or Animal Planet? Cousteau was pretty much the granddaddy of this kind of filmmaking. Plus he was a commando in the...
