Emplumada

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1981

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“Emplumada” consists of two stanzas of seven lines apiece, followed by a third stanza of four lines. Stanzas and lines are traditionally justified to the left side of the page. The poem employs no end rhyme or formal meter, and the lines vary in length: It is a poem in free verse.

The speaker of the poem communicates from a third-person perspective. Syntactically, the poem consists of seven grammatically complete and punctuated phrases. Four of those phrases occur in the first stanza. The longest phrase begins in the first stanza and takes up most of the second. While the phrases themselves are scattered, the three stanzas offer three distinct movements within the poem.

In the first stanza, summer is coming to its end and the blooms are fading. Death has arrived, depressingly on time. The observer in the poem despairs at the loss. The second stanza, or movement, introduces the peaches, reaching past the barrier that is the fence and the hummingbirds—“stuck to each other” (Line 11)—struggling to extract what they can from life, while they can.

In the third stanza, or movement, the birds are free “from history” (Line 15), able as they are to fly above it.

Enjambment

In “Emplumada,” the poet uses grammatically complete phrasing, fully punctuated. She achieves surprise and a varied musicality, however, with the use of enjambment—the continuation of a phrase from one line and/or stanza to the next. “They were still, so quiet. They were” (Line 4) provides a deep sense of loss with the repetition of the phrase, They were, before continuing on to a description of the flowers’ coloring.

In Line 5, “She hated” (Line 5) is curiously enjambed to “and she hated to see” (Line 6), which in turn is enjambed to “them go” (Line 7). The first instance of She hated stands alone, before the reader understands exactly what it is the observer hates. In Line 5, she hates, as a general state of being—no object to her hatred yet, just hate. In Line 6, she hates having to witness. It isn’t until Line 7 that the reader is assured of what, precisely, she hates, which is the flowers’ departure. Enjambment allows the reader to experience hatred from multiple perspectives, and with some depth.

In the final stanza, enjambment helps to complicate ideas of history, violence, and peace. These birds hold the wind under their wings, as sails might capture the wind. Historically, ships sailed for purposes of trade, to do battle, and to conquer and appropriate—and after ships, planes. These birds, however, “find peace / in the way they contain the wind” (Lines 16-17), not for power—but for freedom. The surprise of the last two enjambed lines echo the fleeting moment of watching a hummingbird hover then disappear to wherever the wind takes it.

Falling & Rising Patterns

While “Emplumada” employs no formal meter, per se, it does use elements of prosody—patterns of rhythm and sound—to invoke a certain mood to the lyric. The dactyl is a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by two unstresses syllables. The dactyl represents what is known as “falling meter,” as it starts strong on the first beat and diminishes over the next two. A dactyl can be composed of a single word, as in “snap-dra-gons” (Line 2) and “hum-ming-birds” (Line 11). Or, a dactyl can be a phrase, as with “shrill-co-lored” (Line 3) and “um-ber now” (Line 5).

The mirror image of the dactyl is the anapest, a metrical foot consisting of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable, also known as a rising meter. Examples include “in the way they con-tain” (Line 17)—two anapests one right after the other—followed by “and are gone” (Line 18).

The falling meter in the first two stanzas lends a tone of struggle—“hum-ming-birds, ho-ver-ing, stuck to each” (Line 11). In the last two lines, the rising meter offers a feeling of triumph. There is lift, and a sense of possibility, in both the meaning and the music.