Storm Warnings

One of Adrienne Rich’s early works, Storm Warnings, is an excellent poem that details an external and internal conflict throughout the progression of its four stanzas. The poem contains several distinct literary devices, most notably its tone and structure, which contribute to the poem’s overall effect. The poem as a whole, is metaphorical. It chronicles the speaker’s realization of and anticipation of a storm outside, but on a deeper level represents a storm within. She uses the development of the storm to describe her own internal conflicts. Rich only directly recognizes this double meaning once, in saying, “Weather abroad/And weather in the heart alike.” Despite this being the only recognition of the parallel, it is abundantly clear that

The poem consists of four stanzas that follow the course of building up, reaching a turning point, and then somewhat of a resolution. This progression mirrors the storm that is happening outside. The first stanza serves to foreshadow the ominous, destructive nature of the storm and also her problems. The second stanza continues with setting the tone, and transitions towards the peak of the poem. The third stanza is the pinnacle of the poem. Within this stanza the speaker comes to the epiphany of the storm’s inevitability, also meaning her issues that cannot be avoided, regardless of whether they can be seen coming or not. The final and fourth stanza, is when the storm arrives and intensifies, while the speaker takes refuge within her homes and lights a candle, signifying acceptance of the problem and holding onto hope. The organized structure of the poem, compares the prediction, acceptance, and protection from a storm to the anticipation, acceptance, and cooperation with inevitable problems in

The first three lines of the third stanza, “Between foreseeing and averting change / Lies all the mastery of elements / Which clocks and weatherglasses cannot alter,” does not refer only to technology used to track weather but also to a person’s mental abilities to detect and avoid problems. Regardless, of how keen a person might think themselves to be, it is impossible to always predict and maneuver around personal issues, just as it is not always possible to see, and avoid a storm. In this way, Rich utilizes the fallibility of weather instruments to symbolize our vulnerability to inescapable obstacles. Another example of symbolism exists in the line, “And set a match to candles sheathed in glass.” Within this phrase, the candle is symbolic of hope in troubled times, and the thin sheath of glass protecting the ‘hope’ is symbolic of how vulnerable we are, since glass is not the sturdiest