For Phyllis Young

In this essay, you will write an explication of the poem "I Have Been A Stranger in a Strange Land," by former Poet Laureate Rita Dove (see below). This will be a fully developed essay, with a thesis statement and supporting paragraphs.  Your goal is to explain and analyze the poem in clear, correct, and lucid prose, and to build a case for your interpretation of the poem. Each paragraph will develop a section of the poem and comment on it.  Use this essay to demonstrate your ability as a critical reader and as a writer based on the skills you have learned in this class in reading and understanding literature. There is no "right answer" to understanding this poem; there is only the case you make for your interpretation, using evidence from the poem to support your assertions. This assignment tests not just your skill as a reader but also, your skill as a writer.

Important note: No research may be used in this assignment.  Evidence that outside sources have been consulted (apart from the website about how to explicate a poem given in the Week Seven discussion) will result in a zero on the assignment.  This assignment is an exercise in close critical reading and writing, not in research.

For a detailed explanation of how to write a poetry explication, see the website we discussed in Week Seven.

I Have Been a Stranger in a Strange Land

It wasn't bliss. What was bliss  but the ordinary life? She'd spend hours  in patter, moving through whole days  touching, sniffing, tasting . . . exquisite  housekeeping in a charmed world.  And yet there was always  more of the same, all that happiness,  the aimless Being There.  So she wandered for a while, bush to arbor,  lingered to look through a pond's restive mirror.  He was off cataloging the universe, probably,  pretending he could organize  what was clearly someone else's chaos.  That's when she found the tree,  the dark, crabbed branches  bearing up such speechless bounty,  she knew without being told  this was forbidden. It wasn't  a question of ownership—  who could lay claim to  such maddening perfection?  And there was no voice in her head,  no whispered intelligence lurking  in the leaves—just an ache that grew  until she knew she'd already lost everything  except desire, the red heft of it  warming her outstretched palm.

By Rita Dove