Bring on the tough stuff - there’s not just one right answer.
- The first line (about the contagious hospital) is really different from everything that comes after it. What would this poem be like if Williams had just left it out? How would it change the meaning and the mood?
- Do you get a sense of who’s talking here? Does this description of the landscape sound like a voice-over in a movie, or do you imagine an actual person looking out at this scene from the side of the road?
- The poem is broken up into lots of small sections. What effect does that create? Do you like that effect? If you could scrunch these lines together into a couple of paragraphs, would you? How would that change the poem?
- The mood in the poem seems to shift around. By the end, are you left feeling excited and happy about spring arriving? Does the change outweigh the cold feeling of the beginning? Or, do you react in some other way?