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Crossing The Swamp By Mary Oliver

374 Words2 Pages
"Crossing the Swamp," a poem by Mary Oliver, confesses a struggle through "pathless, seamless, peerless mud" to a triumphant solitary victory in a "breathing palace of leaves." Oliver's affair with the "black, slack earthsoup" is demonstrated as she faces her long coming combat against herself. Throughout this free verse poem, the wild spirit of the author is sensed in this flexible writing style. While Oliver's indecisiveness is obvious throughout the text, it is physically obvious in the shape of the poem itself. It shows a left to right jagged motion to show the one step forward, two steps back thought process as she is struggling to face the problem when it is easier to do nothing. Mary Oliver says, "Here is swamp, here is struggle." This
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