Workshop Response- "The Ocean"

Katie Pollard’s Poem, “The Ocean”

            I absolutely love the way this poem sounds and the images it creates. I think Katie used personification extremely well- I could envision and feel what the ocean was feeling, especially here, “By drowning, dragging, pulling, / she gets what she wants and none / can calm her”. I also liked how she stayed away from clichés, which are so easy to come by when writing about the ocean. My favorite line of the poem is the first two lines of the last stanza, “She whispers, she sighs, she tells / Secrets of lovers and wars”. I love the picture this creates, and again the personification helps to clarify this image.

            I think that, while this poem is full of great imagery, the poem would benefit from concrete images of the ocean. Without reading the title, one wouldn’t be able to completely comprehend the subject of the poem. I also enjoyed the line breaks, and how thoughts flow from one sentence to the next, though I think sometimes it falls at a strange place, without having the desired effect of enjambment (lines 4-5).

            The poem has a very nice sound, which is attributed to the use of consonance of the letters s and o, and the repetition in the first line of each stanza. I really like the second stanza, I think that effectively uses consonance.