Analysis of Arithmetic
Carl Sandburg 1878 (Galesburg) – 1967 (Flat Rock)
Arithmetic is where numbers fly like pigeons in and out of your
head.
Arithmet ic tell you how many you lose or win if you know how
many you had before you lost or won.
Arithmetic is seven eleven all good children go to heaven -- or five
six bundle of sticks.
Arithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head to your hand
to your pencil to your paper till you get the answer.
Arithmetic is where the answer is right and everything is nice and
you can look out of the window and see the blue sky -- or the
answer is wrong and you have to start all over and try again
and see how it comes out this time.
If you take a number and double it and double it again and then
double it a few more times, the number gets bigger and bigger
and goes higher and higher and only arithmetic can tell you
what the number is when you decide to quit doubling.
Arithmetic is where you have to multiply -- and you carry the
multiplication table in your head and hope you won't lose it.
If you have two animal crackers, one good and one bad, and you
eat one and a striped zebra with streaks all over him eats the
other, how many animal crackers will you have if somebody
offers you five six seven and you say No no no and you say
Nay nay nay and you say Nix nix nix?
If you ask your mother for one fried egg for breakfast and she
gives you two fried eggs and you eat both of them, who is
better in arithmetic, you or your mother?
Scheme | ABCDEFGHIJKLKHMNJOMJPQFPRH |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 0101110111000111 1 111111011111111 1011011111 0101100101110111011 11011 01011011111111 11101110111010 0101101011010110 111110100101110 1011011111100101 01111111 111010010101010101 1010111010110010 0110010010010111 1010111111100 010111111001100 001010011011111 1111100101101101 110011011110110 1011010010111110 1011110011111011 111011111 111110111111001 1111101111111 10001011110 |
Closest metre | Iambic heptameter |
Characters | 1,459 |
Words | 286 |
Sentences | 10 |
Stanzas | 1 |
Stanza Lengths | 26 |
Lines Amount | 26 |
Letters per line (avg) | 42 |
Words per line (avg) | 11 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 1,102 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 284 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 26, 2023
- 1:26 min read
- 337 Views
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"Arithmetic" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/4607/arithmetic>.
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