In the old neighborhood, each funeral parlor
is more elaborate than the last.
The alleys smell of cops, pistols bumping their thighs,
each chamber steeled with a slim blue bullet.
Low-rent balconies stacked to the sky.
A boy plays tic-tac-toe on a moon
crossed by TV antennae, dreams
he has swallowed a blue bean.
It takes root in his gut, sprouts
and twines upward, the vines curling
around the sockets and locking them shut.
And this sky, knotting like a dark tie?
The patroller, disinterested, holds all the beans.
In Dove’s poem, Teach Us to Number Our Days, Dove uses verse form to convey her message. There are many different types of verse form, but Dove writes this poem as a prose poem. There are many reasons why Dove writes this poem as a prose, but the most main reason is to emphasize the meaning of the poem.
In the first stanza, she separates each two lines with sentences. She pauses every other stanza in other to emphasize the meaning behind it. In the first sentence, she says that “In the old neighborhood, each funeral parlor is more elaborate than the last.” The next sentence takes up the next two lines of the 1st stanza. “The alley smell of cops, pistols bumping their thighs, each chamber steeled with a slim blue bullet.” Here, the poet completely stops at the thought of the description of the neighborhood, and then transform into the buildings in the neighborhood. In the next stanza, the first line represents a sentence, but the next two lines are not ended in the same stanza; it is ended in the stanza after. The first sentence, “Low-rent balconies stacked to the sky,” gives a pause to the thought, as if that sentence should belong with the previous stanza. After that sentence, the rest of the stanza talks about a boy on a moon, but the sentence ends in the next stanza. The split here makes readers wonder why would the poet split ideas of each stanza. As the reader observes, the ideas from the previous stanza connect with the ideas of the current stanza. Doing this help progresses the poem in a clear manner and the audience can see how the sentences connect. However, this ends with the third stanza with the sentence ending.
The last two lines of the poem gives the audience wonder. Dove asks a question in the 1st line, connecting with the boy on the moon, and in the last line, connects the beans with the bean inside of the boy. The use of prose poetry here helps connect the details of the poem with the overall meaning. The bean that is sprouting inside the boy is representing the end of the boy’s life, as “the vines curling around the sockets and locking them shut”. The prose poetry here makes the message clear with the details presented and the theme implied in the last two lines of the poem.
is more elaborate than the last.
The alleys smell of cops, pistols bumping their thighs,
each chamber steeled with a slim blue bullet.
Low-rent balconies stacked to the sky.
A boy plays tic-tac-toe on a moon
crossed by TV antennae, dreams
he has swallowed a blue bean.
It takes root in his gut, sprouts
and twines upward, the vines curling
around the sockets and locking them shut.
And this sky, knotting like a dark tie?
The patroller, disinterested, holds all the beans.
In Dove’s poem, Teach Us to Number Our Days, Dove uses verse form to convey her message. There are many different types of verse form, but Dove writes this poem as a prose poem. There are many reasons why Dove writes this poem as a prose, but the most main reason is to emphasize the meaning of the poem.
In the first stanza, she separates each two lines with sentences. She pauses every other stanza in other to emphasize the meaning behind it. In the first sentence, she says that “In the old neighborhood, each funeral parlor is more elaborate than the last.” The next sentence takes up the next two lines of the 1st stanza. “The alley smell of cops, pistols bumping their thighs, each chamber steeled with a slim blue bullet.” Here, the poet completely stops at the thought of the description of the neighborhood, and then transform into the buildings in the neighborhood. In the next stanza, the first line represents a sentence, but the next two lines are not ended in the same stanza; it is ended in the stanza after. The first sentence, “Low-rent balconies stacked to the sky,” gives a pause to the thought, as if that sentence should belong with the previous stanza. After that sentence, the rest of the stanza talks about a boy on a moon, but the sentence ends in the next stanza. The split here makes readers wonder why would the poet split ideas of each stanza. As the reader observes, the ideas from the previous stanza connect with the ideas of the current stanza. Doing this help progresses the poem in a clear manner and the audience can see how the sentences connect. However, this ends with the third stanza with the sentence ending.
The last two lines of the poem gives the audience wonder. Dove asks a question in the 1st line, connecting with the boy on the moon, and in the last line, connects the beans with the bean inside of the boy. The use of prose poetry here helps connect the details of the poem with the overall meaning. The bean that is sprouting inside the boy is representing the end of the boy’s life, as “the vines curling around the sockets and locking them shut”. The prose poetry here makes the message clear with the details presented and the theme implied in the last two lines of the poem.