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Unread 07-15-2013, 05:09 PM
Mary McLean Mary McLean is offline
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I'm not sure I'd call this IP, but I'd certainly call it a sonnet. Are the two indivisible? The frequent anapestic feet suit the chaotic rhythm of childhood, though as others have suggested it might be nice for the final couplet to revert to a more rigid pattern for contrast.

I can't decide whether I like the symbolism, which feels a bit tacked-on. Is the snake the devil or male genitalia or just a reptile? I'm not sure a snake really can be just a snake in a poem nowadays, particularly in a poem about childhood. The wealth of physical detail and the breathless exuberance of the tone are very attractive, but the clues to the poem's subtext are so contradictory that it doesn't end up meaning much to me. My preference would be for a bit more clarity in the final couplet on the narrator's current state, as others have suggested, since it obviously isn't narrated by a child. But maybe that would mess up the tone.
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