Quotes and annotations

“beside the dresser with it’s cracked delft.

And every last crumb of daylight was salted away.”

‘cracked’ → poor, run down

‘every last crumb’ → shows poverty and links to ‘cracked’. Even though your poor you can still write brilliant stories

‘every’ → every little counts → she put her everything into her stories

‘away’ → waiting for night time to come so she can tell her stories.

“for as the tongue clacked

five or forty fingers stitched

corn was grated from the husk

patchwork was pieced”

‘clacked’ → onomatopoeia, clacked is the sound of a machine, a machine creates a story

‘five or forty fingers’ → help anyone, stories help anyone

‘stitched’ and ‘pieced’ → semantic field of repair indicating the process of creation and mending, suggesting that stories can heal and bring people together.

“as thin grey light washed over flat fields

the stories dissolved in the whorl of the ear

but they”

‘thin grey light’ → pathetic fallacy, somber but hint of light shows happiness

‘dissolved’ → can’t go back once stories are told, they can fade but their essence remains.

‘whorl’ → whirl, metaphor of keeping on going

‘but they’ → makes readers reflect on the stories. short line/free verse shows the freedom of the stories.

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