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The Centaur May Swenson Analysis

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The Centaur May Swenson Analysis
Andreea Varna
English Writing 300
Professor McFadden
February 8, 2012
The Centaur The poem “The Centaur”, written by May Swenson allows readers the opportunity to see through the eyes of a young girl as her imagination brings a hand crafted piece of wood to life; transforming it into a majestic stallion. As she lets her imagination flourish throughout her experience the reader sees how the girl and stallion become one. Swenson’s careful choice of words contain abundant elements of language, imagery, and structure throughout the poem which is what opens the girls experience up to the reader so well. The light tone and the mood in which the work is written brings the girls memory and recollection of her experience to life very well. The …show more content…
The girls’ flashback of this particular horse ride reveals to the reader not only her enjoyment of the ride itself but the pure bliss that she experienced by being one with her creation, a bliss which no regular person could feel or understand; the bliss of being a centaur. While on her horse ride the little girl has nothing else on her mind other than what lies in front of the dusty path that she is trotting on. “I’d straddle and canter him fast/ up the grass bank to the path, / trot along in the lovely dust/ that talcumed over his hoofs, / hiding my toes, and turning/ his feet to swift half-moons” (lines …show more content…
The poem continues through the speakers usage of imagery in lines (6-8) “I’d go out to choose/ a fresh horse from my stable/ which was a willow grove/ down by the old canal”. At this point in the poem the reader takes a noticing to the fact that her “stable of horses,” which she picks a horse from is in actuality a grove of willows by some old canals. Through this usage of imagery the reader can also understand how she made her horse; the imagery though is what actually brings this creation to life in the poem. Her imagery is very in depth especially when describing how the girl imagines herself to appear during the ride. “The willow knob with the strap/ jouncing between my thighs/ was the pommel and yet the poll/ of my nickering pony’s head” (line 23-26). Similarly, in lines 27-28 “My head and my neck were mine, / yet they were shaped like a horse,” the author uses a simile in addition to creating clearer images and pictures in the mind of the reader. The author begins to really hint that the young girl is actually a part of her fictional horse by going into deeper detail in how the girl envisions herself, “My hair flopped to the side/ like the mane of a horse in the wind” (lines 29-30). The imagery keeps becoming more and more concrete to the fact that she is one with her willow crafted horse as the poem progresses until she actually states through a metaphor that the girl
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