MAIN 8 POEMS

How is obsessive love shown in The Farmer’s Bride through isolation and control?

“I’ve hardly heard her speak at all” | “She runned away” | “We chased her, flying like a hare” | “Her eyes, her hair, her hair!”

How is obsessive love shown in Porphyria’s Lover through possession and power?

“That moment she was mine, mine” | “And all her yellow hair displaced” | “I found / A thing to do” | “God has not said a word!”

How is romantic love shown in Love’s Philosophy through longing and natural imagery?

“The fountains mingle with the river” | “Nothing in the world is single” | “Why not I with thine?” | “The moonbeams kiss the sea”

How is romantic love shown in Sonnet 29 through desire and closeness?

“I think of thee!” | “My thoughts do twine and bud” | “I do not think of thee — I am too near thee” | “Rustle thy boughs and set thy trunk all bare”

How is familial love shown in Mother, Any Distance through support and independence?

“You come to help me measure windows” | “Anchor. Kite.” | “I space-walk through the empty bedrooms” | “To fall or fly.”

How is familial love shown in Walking Away through protection and letting go?

“It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day” | “Like a satellite wrenched from its orbit” | “Half-fledged thing set free” | “Love is proved in the letting go”

How is emotional distance shown in Winter Swans through nature and reconciliation?

“The clouds had given their all” | “Waterlogged earth gulping for breath” | “They mate for life” | “Our hands… swum the distance between us”

How is emotional numbness shown in Neutral Tones through bleak imagery and finality?

“We stood by a pond that winter day” | “Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove” | “The smile on your mouth was the deadest thing” | “A pond edged with greyish leaves”