Analysis of Chinese
The first time I ate Chinese
She made me use chopsticks
The sticks hung like broken fingers
But she insisted I try
She had traveled to China
Slept in a tent on the steppe
Where little villagers
Marveled at red hair
All that I understand of China
A custom here, a forbidden temple
Spilled from her pink mouth
And crept inside of me
Now, I cook my own Chinese
In a tarnished wok on the stove
The smell lingers in the carpet
Of this dim apartment
And some nights, I hear through walls
Two making love
Their whispers and cries sound foreign to me
And could be Chinese
Scheme | AXBX CXBX CXXD AXXX XXDA |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Etheree (30%) Tetractys (20%) |
Metre | 0111101 11111 01111010 1101011 1110110 1001101 110100 10111 11101110 0101010010 11011 010111 1111101 00101101 01100010 111010 0111111 1101 1100111011 01101 |
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 544 |
Words | 108 |
Sentences | 1 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 20 |
Letters per line (avg) | 23 |
Words per line (avg) | 5 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 91 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 22 |
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Submitted on May 01, 2011
Modified on April 02, 2023
- 32 sec read
- 10 Views
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"Chinese" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 17 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/68030/chinese>.
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