EVE TO HER DAUGHTERS

STRUCTURE

• stanzas: 10
• lines: some short, mainly long, some enjambent, mostly end-stopped
• verse: free
• rhyme: no direct rhyme; little end-rhyme, no apparent pattern
• meter: slow cadence, nothing structured

"even beyond existence"

-Assonance
-e's repeated (eh and ee sounds)

"I observed with Abel and Cain"

-Allusion
- "Abel and Cain" are said to be two men from the first year of the world. The voice, Eve, is referencing them because they were some of the first humans to witness what the world started out as, so together they could reflect with Eve to see the massive change the earth has undergone.

“Perhaps the whole elaborate fable/
right from the beginning/
is meant to demonstrate this; perhaps it’s the whole/ secret./
Perhaps nothing exists but our faults?”

-Repetition
- "Perhaps"

"Eve to her daughters" is a poem voiced by Eve from creation, writing, in essence, a letter to her daughters about the mistakes she has made, her past, and their future based on what the world is turning into because of mankind today.

"Earth Song"

Judith, Wright. "Eve to Her Daughters." Trans. W.S. Merwin. Reading the World: Contemporary Literature From Around the Globe. Ed. Carol Francis. Logan, IA: Perfection Learning, 2012. eBook.

made by Ella Silvers