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Sestina Figurative Language

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The poem I chose to analyze was “Sestina” by Elizabeth Bishop. I chose this poem due to its structure, use of figurative language, repetition and tone. This poem uses vivid imagery to draw the reader in as though they are present at the grandmother’s house on that rainy September afternoon as the grandmother makes tea and the grandchild draws innocently. The poem takes a turn when the reader realizes that the grandmother is crying as though she has lost someone special in her life. The child drawings reflect those emotions as we analyze what her drawings are actually trying to convey. The author uses six words house, grandmother, child, stove, almanac and tears. These six words are important to the development of the poem due to all the words appearing continually throughout the entirety of speech. The title of the poem gives away what type of structure the poem will have. Elizabeth Bishop followed all the guidelines for a traditional Sestina giving her a legitimate reason for naming her poem “Sestina”. A sestina is a poem that is composed of six stanzas with six lines and an envoi , all stanzas having the same six words at the line-ends in six different sequences that follow a fixed pattern, and with all six words …show more content…

Her choice of the word hoovers instead of fly gave a the appearance of the almanac physically hoovering giving the almanac the ability to hover above the grandmother and the grandchild but also the absence of the man in the child’s drawing hovering over the grandmother leaving her in an emotional state. The child is naïve and doesn’t realize the battle the grandmother endures due to the absence of the man in the drawing so it seems that grandmother feels as though she has to stay strong for the child and that responsibility is hovering over the grandmother as

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