A Poem for My Librarian, Mrs. Long

(2) Sea Level

This poem is a fairly straightforward recollection of an important childhood experience—without rhyme and all those pesky figures of speech that normally make poems a bit of a slog for readers. While Giovanni does use some poetic devices, they're kind of "silent." They tend not to scream "Poetic device alert! Figurative language at work!" You might need a minute to adjust to the lack of punctuation, but reading the poem out loud should help you out with this.