Wild Geese

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2004

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form & Meter

The poem is all one continuous stanza and uses relatively straightforward punctuation and enjambment throughout its 18 lines, creating a clear and logical pattern of lineation. Enjambment is when a line breaks in the middle of a thought or sentence without punctuation. This allows some separation, and can help place emphasis, particularly on the second part of the sentence that hangs onto the next line. This is particularly evident between Lines 4 and 5, where the poet breaks the line after “body” and allows “love what it loves” (Line 5) to exist on its own. The strong image of the soft body is also left stronger by not being outshone by love. This simplicity is reflective of nature’s purity; ideas that harken back to the Transcendentalist philosophy and Romantic poetry movements. The poem is written in free verse, meaning that there is no metrical or rhyming structure. The poem is driven by the use of second person and the direct address. In doing so, the poem adopts an authoritative and directive tone in which the speaker instructs the proverbial “you.”

Repetition

One of the main poetic devices employed by the poet is anaphora. Anaphora is the repeating of a word, or a phrase, at the beginning of a line. Oliver begins the poem with this device, repeating the phrase “You do not have to” in the opening two lines. Later in the poem, Oliver begins multiple lines with “Meanwhile,” which are in Lines 7, 8, and 12. Anaphora is an effective tool that creates an insistence, and persuasion, which is particularly powerful in a poem with a clear message such as this one. The repetition of “You do not have to” allows the reader to believe in Oliver’s authority, while the repetition of “Meanwhile” affirms and reaffirms the insistence of time’s continuity.

Oliver also relies on alliteration throughout the poem. Alliteration is the repetition of identical initial consonant sounds in successive or closely associated syllables within a group of words. Alliteration can help a poet control the pace of a poem, either speeding up or slowing down depending on the sounds employed. In “Wild Geese,” Oliver also uses the alliteration to help convey a sense of order and meaning to the world in which she writes. Through connecting words to one another via sound, a larger sense of interconnectedness can be inferred. This can be seen in Lines 4 and 5, where the “l” sound is present at the beginning of “let,” “love,” and “love” but also contained within the words “only” and “animal.” The “l” is an euphonic sound, meaning it is smooth and pleasing to the ear. This makes sense in the context of the word “soft,” which appears in those same lines (Lines 4-5). Oliver is able to write softly and slow down the pace of the poem so that one lingers on each word.

In spite of its lack of rhyme, there are repeating sounds throughout through half-rhymes in the form of assonance and consonance (repeating vowel sounds and consonant sounds, respectively.) For example, “rain” and “prairies” in Lines 8 and 9 repeat the vowel “ai” sound.

Figurative Language

Instead of using complex poetic phrasing, the poem relies on figurative language such as imagery and metaphor to convey meaning in its simple and colloquial diction. Imagery can be found in almost every line of the poem, whether it’s the “clear pebbles of the rain” (Line 8) or the “clean blue air” (Line 12).

The poem also relies on personification, a technique of figurative language that endows non-human subjects with human characteristics. This figure of speech is a form of metaphor in that it ascribes the qualities of one thing to another. Oliver’s use of personification is particularly clever in this context; in ascribing the world with human capabilities of “offering,” or the sun and the rain as “moving,” she is able to reassert the oneness of both humankind and nature.