Before we can discuss the techniques that Elizabeth Bishop uses to reinforce her theme, we must realize her poems rarely have an easy moral or a clear "meaning." What Bishop's poems do have--and "The Sandpiper" is no exception--is precise description of the physical world. What does it all mean? In this case, it may just mean that we are all like the sandpiper: "preoccupied, / looking for something, something, something."
Both the meter and the rhyme of the poem are...
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