DocViewer Zoom Pages Mary Oliver’s Crossing the Swamp is a great example of a poem that entrap the reader in another place and time. Oliver accomplishes this through her use of alliteration, enjambment, and tone. These techniques help to form a connection between the swamp and the reader. Alliteration is used many times throughout this poem such as when the bog is being described “...branching vines, the dark burred faintly belching bogs.” This causes the reader to see the bog more clearly and also give the bog a sense of cohesiveness that wouldn’t be as palpable without the addition of alliteration. The descriptive words flow together, weaving themselves together making themselves dense and thick just like the vines of the swamp. …show more content…
The poem itself is like an extension of the swamp in content as well as structure. The poem is very much structured like a winding swamp. The arrangement of the poem itself zigzags across the page much like a disorienting twisting swamp, this helps to emphasize the complexity of the speaker’s struggle as well as capture the reader’s sense of uneasiness. Enjambment is also used to emphasize important phrases throughout the poem. The dilemma is shown by Oliver putting “cosmos, the center” on its own line, she also does this with “is struggle” and “closure”. By the end of the poem Oliver has relinquished her dilemma of fighting with the swamp stating it “could take root, sprout, branch out, bud- make of its life a breathing palace of leaves.” This closure gives the reader a sense of completeness and hope that the swamp is not all doom and gloom there is indeed a positive outcome of its existence. The tone of this poem is a major key to its successful connection with audiences: it starts as oppressive and gradually morphs into a more hopeful and forgiving one. In the beginning of the poem many words are used to set up the swamp as a negative force such as; dense, belching, deep, and