Sign Inventory - Week 5

“Morning Song”

by Sylvia Plath

1.      The poem begins and ends with similes.

2.      There is a persistent “s” sound throughout the poem. It reminds the reader of the wind or perhaps a whisper.

3.      She uses kennings to redefine common words: moth-breath and cow-heavy.

4.      The third stanza is the only one in which all three lines are used to complete one sentence. The other stanzas are broken by multiple sentences and enjambments.

5.      The third stanza is also unique because it shows a lack of connection the subject has to the “baby.”

6.      The title, “Morning Song,” is reinforced at the end of the poem with the line “try your handful of notes.”

7.      The single cry of the baby becomes absorbed by the voices in the beginning of the poem; however, by the end of the poem, the voices have disappeared and baby’s cry is the only sound.

8.      The reference to the Victorian nightgown juxtaposes the baby’s nakedness. The Victorian’s were infamous for covering everything on the body and even furniture. The fact that the subject is “covered” so completely and the baby is not forces the reader to consider what a grown-up is confined by that a baby is not.

9.      “New Statue” is a strange reference. Statues are inanimate objects, forever fixed in the position they are carved in. How is a baby, who is animate, like the statue?

10.  The drafty museum and blank walls is another odd image. One expects a museum to have something on its walls – unless one is walking through a hall of statues?

11.  The poem moves through a list of hard tangible materials to intangible materials: gold watch, statue, mirror, roses, sea, floral night gown, cat, window, stars, balloons.