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Describe the form or structure of Eavan Boland’s poem “Anorexic”.
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Eavan Boland's poem "Anorexic" is structured primarily in tercets, except for the final quatrain, creating a fragmented tone that mirrors the speaker's emotional state. The poem's visual form is long and thin, reflecting the theme of anorexia. The rhyme scheme begins with a rhyming couplet but becomes irregular, symbolizing the speaker's unraveling emotions. The consistent syllabic meter and use of alliteration and repetition give the poem an incantatory quality, enhancing its spiritual and metaphorical layers.
There isn't too much about the form and structure of "Anorexic" which is consistent throughout the poem, but one feature which is consistent is the stanza length. All of the stanzas are tercets (stanzas of three lines), except for the final stanza, which is a quatrain (four lines). Arguably, the short stanzas, especially when combined with the enjambment running throughout the poem, create a fragmented, blunt tone, echoing the voice of the speaker. The final stanza being four lines, rather than three, helps to echo the sense of accumulation and excess implied by the listing within the lines "and breasts / and lips and heat / and sweat and fat and greed."
In terms of the rhyme scheme, there is some rhyming in the first two stanzas (the first two lines of stanza one rhyme, as do the last two lines of stanza two), and there is rhyming again in...
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stanza twelve ("so . . . grow"). In most stanzas, however, there are no end rhymes. The fact that the poem begins with a rhymingcouplet in the first two stanzas, before the rhyme then breaks down, could echo the increasing inability of the speaker to contain or impose any kind of order on their emotions. The speaker is unravelling emotionally, and this is echoed in the unravelling of the rhyme scheme.
The syllabic meter, or line length throughout the poem, is reasonably consistent, in the sense that in most stanzas, there is only a small difference in regard to the number of syllables in each line. All of the lines in stanzas three and four, for example, have either four or five syllables. When the syllabic meter is regular like this, the effect is usually a consistent rhythm, which reflects either some kind of regularity in the content or ideas of the poem, or the constancy of the emotional state of the speaker. So, in this poem, you might argue that the regular rhythm created, for the most part, through the regular syllabic meter, reflects the constant, inescapable anguish of the speaker.
The form of Eavan Boland's poem "Anorexic" is suitable for its subject matter. In the poem, a speaker describes the effect that anorexia has had on both her physical and emotional health. The speaker is violent and angry towards her body, which she views as a betrayer. She is also strangely spiritual about her growing thinness, which she equates with goodness, or in her words, "sinless, foodless."
The poem itself is long and thin on the page. The longest line is only seven words, and most are no more than three. In addition, almost all of the fifteen stanzas are only three lines long. This causes the poem to stretch down the page and act as a visual representation of anorexia.
Through her manipulation of the poem's form, Boland has also lent it an incantatory quality suitable for both the spiritual side of the subject matter, as well as the act of witch-burning she uses as a metaphor for her body's betrayal. There are many instances of alliteration, repetition, and rhyme (i.e. "starved and curveless...skin and bone," "How warm it was and wide//once by a warm drum," "Caged so/I will grow"), all of which are seen in both spells and prayer.
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