Open Casket (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Sandra McPherson
- First Published: 1978
- Type of Work: Lyric
- Genres: Poetry, Lyric poetry
- Subjects: North America or North Americans, United States or Americans, Schools or school life, California, West, U.S., Sea or seafaring life, Entertaining or entertainers, Vacations, Tourist trade, Beaches or seashores, Pacific Ocean, Boats or boating, Fishes, Ocean, Buses
The Poem
“Open Casket” is a free-verse poem in which the poet describes and moves through various California landscapes. The identity of the speaker is muted, and the personal pronoun Sandra McPherson uses is the plural “we,” which de-emphasizes the individual in the scene and focuses the reader’s attention on the landscape itself.
Although the title suggests a funeral at which there is an “open casket” viewing of the deceased, the poem itself seems to go off in a different direction, depicting vacation entertainments, rural landscapes seen from a bus, a...
[The entire page is 1565 words long]
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