Analysis of THE STORM
Ken Bartlett 1934 (Leominsterr Mass)
The day was calm, a smell of autumn was there.
The sky was a bit hazy, and the sun lacked its glare.
George and his bro trotted off to school.
The breeze wrinkled the skin of the tidal pool.
Folks went to work. Some picked up their mail.
The breeze soon changed into a harsh growing gale.
By two in the afternoon it became an express
delivering considerable fear and distress!
Fierce winds and high tides accosted the shore.
Some of its victims were gone; breathing no more.
George and his brother arrived home unaware
that the road behind them had been swept bare.
The house groaned and creaked thru the night.
Power lines came down. No one had light.
When daylight arrived, the wind and rain were still strong.
Everyone expected this day would be long.
Before nightfall, the storm clouds moved on.
The family decided to go outside on the lawn.
The view that they saw was a landscape stripped clean.
The trees and houses weren't where they'd been seen.
Their house was all that was left; all else had gone away.
In its place, a sea of sand had come to bury and stay.
The family packed what they could carry and left;
turned and looked one last time at their home, bereft.
Scheme | AABB CCDD EEAA FFGG XXHH IIJJ |
---|---|
Poetic Form | Quatrain (83%) |
Metre | 01110111011 0110110001111 101110111 01100110101 111111111 01110101101 110001101101 0100010001001 1101101001 11110011011 1011001101 1010111111 01101101 101111111 11010101011 1001011111 01101111 0100101111101 0111110111 01010101111 1111111111101 01101111111001 010011111001 10111111101 |
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 1,238 |
Words | 243 |
Sentences | 23 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
Lines Amount | 24 |
Letters per line (avg) | 38 |
Words per line (avg) | 9 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 154 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 37 |
About this poem
In 1938, hurricane tracking lacked the sophistication of today. The one that crossed Long Island and slammed into southern New England caught many unaware. My memories of that event precipitated this story.
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Submitted by compostken on October 10, 2022
Modified by compostken on October 10, 2022
- 1:13 min read
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"THE STORM" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 13 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/140761/the--storm>.
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