Analysis of In a Breath
Carl Sandburg 1878 (Galesburg) – 1967 (Flat Rock)
To the Williamson Brothers
High noon. White sun flashes on the Michigan Avenue
asphalt. Drum of hoofs and whirr of motors.
Women trapsing along in flimsy clothes catching
play of sun-fire to their skin and eyes.
Inside the playhouse are movies from under the sea.
From the heat of pavements and the dust of sidewalks,
passers-by go in a breath to be witnesses of
large cool sponges, large cool fishes, large cool valleys
and ridges of coral spread silent in the soak of
the ocean floor thousands of years.
A naked swimmer dives. A knife in his right hand
shoots a streak at the throat of a shark. The tail
of the shark lashes. One swing would kill the swimmer. . .
Soon the knife goes into the soft under-
neck of the veering fish. . . Its mouthful of teeth,
each tooth a dagger itself, set row on row, glistens
when the shuddering, yawning cadaver is hauled up
by the brothers of the swimmer.
Outside in the street is the murmur and singing of life
in the sun--horses, motors, women trapsing along
in flimsy clothes, play of sun-fire in their blood.
Scheme | A XAXX XXBXBX XXCCXAXC XXX |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 1010010 1111101010010 111101110 10101010110 1111011101 010111011001 10111000111 1011001111001 111011101110 0101101100011 01011011 010101010111 10110110101 101101111010 1011010110 1101011111 110100111111 1010010010111 10101010 11001101001011 001101010101 010111110011 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,057 |
Words | 190 |
Sentences | 18 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 4, 6, 8, 3 |
Lines Amount | 22 |
Letters per line (avg) | 38 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 165 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 38 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 10, 2023
- 57 sec read
- 166 Views
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