Essay on "Anyone Lived in a Pretty How Town" Analysis

There is no verse in the poem, but there is a rhythm that emerges when read aloud. The author uses a negative, positive pattern throughout the majority of the poem, which, accentuates the differences between her positive feeling about the memory, vs. the white author’s perception of the memory.

The poem is written in free verse, offers no type of rhyme scheme, and in one long stanza. This contributes to

The poem is structured in a way which follows the proper metre for a sonnet, however, it is unusual in a sense that it is free verse and has no rhyme scheme. The sentences are broken to fit the iambic pentameter. This creates pauses, and a choppiness in the flow

The poem is a free verse with no firm beat following the lines of the poem. The lines are mostly comprised of enjambment lines, so there is no real end to them. The speaker starts his reflection off with 2 examples of alliteration. The speaker is remembering his “first time [he] walked / With a girl, [he]

The poem is separated into two parts, each with sixteen lines, and is loosely based on an iambic pentameter metre. The rhyme scheme is ABAB throughout the poem, with the noticeable exception of the last four lines of part II, in which it changes to

The poem is composed in free verse and it has no rhyme scheme or meter. It is 51 lines long and takes no particular structure with fluctuated line lengths all throughout the work. It is told as story from what can be accepted is a young boys' viewpoint. There are points in the story where it makes it clear the story is being told later on, as in line 8 where it is composed "Even/a quarter century later…." however a significant part of the story is told in the current state. This change makes readers feel as though we are

Once more, the poet anticipates his own death when he composes this poem. But in each of these quatrains, the speaker fails to confront the full scope of his problem: winter, in fact, is a part of a cycle; winter follows spring, and spring returns after winter just as surely. Age, on the other hand, is not a cycle; youth will not come again for the speaker. In the third quatrain, the speaker resigns himself to this fact.]

The poem does not follow a rhyme scheme or meter, which means that there is rhythm in the poem and it makes the poem more like a song. The poem has four stanza’s and has five lines within each stanza.

There are many advantages and disadvantages of choosing to live in the country or to live in the city. But the advantages of living in the country definitely outweigh the advantages of living in the city.

In the last stanza of the poem, this is a realization of the poem where a schoolgirl who is hiding underneath her desk understands the meaning of death, grief, and sadness unlike the society around her. When the schoolgirl says

Many families and individuals find themselves at some point questioning the advantages of city living versus country living. It is nearly impossible to find a good answer to this question. What is good for one person might not be good for another. Some people enjoy the busy, hyper active metropolitan city where they can use all amenities and have unlimited opportunities for work and leisure. At the same time, other people feel the urge to be closer to Mother Nature, relaxation, beauty, and peace. They take pleasure in living in the calm and peaceful environment of the countryside and spending their free time fishing, hiking, picking berries in the woods, or playing in the creek. In my opinion, the nature

The poem contains six quatrains, and does not follow any consistent rhyme scheme. Every line starts with a strong beat and ends up with a weak beat. The first and third lines in each stanza have iambic tetrameter, but the second and fourth lines do not contain any consistent meter. The feet generate a rhythm

In his poem “Acquainted with the Night,” Robert Frost describes a character who spends his nights wandering the city streets. The reader can infer from both Frost’s tone, and the time of day in which the speaker chooses to walk, that the character is in a world of isolation. This is especially evident in the lines, “When far away an interrupted cry/ Came over houses from another street,/ But not to call me back or say good-by” (Frost 898). From this line, the reader understands that the poem’s speaker feels as if he is completely isolated in the world. In a similar way, E. E. Cummings poem “anyone lived in a pretty how town” expresses the loneliness felt by people of this era. Cummings creative use of pronouns gives the poem a double entendre. The characters, anyone and noone, can represent their literal meanings, or a single man and woman. Therefore, when Cummings writes that “noone loves him more by more,” he could mean that anyone is being loved greatly, or not at all. This loneliness is expressed yet again when Cummings informs the reader, “Women and men (both little and small)/ cared for anyone not at all” (Cummings 922). The works of both Frost and Cummings both portray the hardship that accompanied the feeling of loneliness during the modern

The poem is structured with 26 lines and each line is of nearly equal length. There is fluidity

The speaker then leaves the voices behind, ignoring the “melancholy.” This is tragic but realistic as life is filled with problems, making it futile to try and help everyone who asks. The second stanza marks the beginning of the speaker’s journey. The beginning line, “it was already late enough,” means the speaker wishes that they had decided to lead their desired life sooner. “The road full of fallen branches and stones” signify hardships one faces while on the path to personal growth, proving that life presents challenges along the way that must be overcome. Line 21 marks a tonal shift in the poem in which the speaker gradually finds their “voice” or individuality after years of following the crowd. Imagery like “the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds” once again ties in nature and connects stars to hope. Oliver uses an anaphora for the last four lines, to emphasize that the only life one can save is their own. Her use of the word “you” instead of “I” interestingly connects the speaker to the reader, spreading the message to live authentically and for oneself. Oliver’s transcendentalist beliefs are hard to miss in this poem, as she herself is known to be a private person