A word dropped careless on a page May stimulate an eye When folded in perpetual seam

1. 1st person plural pronoun: persona speaks on responder’s behalf A word dropped careless on a page May stimulate an eye When folded in perpetual seam The wrinkled maker lie. Infection in the sentence breeds. We may inhale Despair At distances of Centuries From the Malaria. Visual imagery suggests personal experience Low modality of ‘may’ and use of indefinite article ‘a Word’ suggest possibility of hypothetical situation being used to illustrate a point about relationships or the power of literature…

2. A word dropped careless on a page • Emily Dickinson quotes regarding language: • “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” • “A word that breathes distinctly Has not the power to die…”

3. Some ideas about words… • startling vitality • organic separate entities, with being, growth, immortality of their own • imperishable significance • embody some terrifying, mysterious power which approaches omnipotence • Compared with malignant germs

4. Two even stanzas: cause and effect Syntax: use of adjective instead of adverb echoes a careless use of language A word dropped careless on a page May stimulate an eye When folded in perpetual seam The wrinkled maker lie. Infection in the sentence breeds. We may inhale despair At distances of centuries From the Malaria. Sparse punctuation: poem divided by short sentence where focus turns from cause to effect. Enjambment: forces reader to move on and conflicts with traditional rhythm and rhyme.

5. Prompt, trigger, kindle, activate, motivate Never-ending, permanent, unchanging A word dropped careless on a page May stimulate an eye When folded in perpetual seam The wrinkled maker lie. Infection in the sentence breeds. We may inhale despair At distances of centuries From the Malaria. contagion, corruption, defilement, disease, poison bring about, bring forth, cause, create, deliver, engender, give rise to, hatch, make, multiply, originate, produce absorb, devour, breathe, smell

6. Indefinite article shows that it could be any word not a specific word Use of adjective instead of adverb echoes a careless use of language A word dropped careless on a page May stimulate an eye When folded in perpetual seam The wrinkled maker lie. Infection in the sentence breeds. We may inhale despair At distances of centuries From the Malaria. Prepositional phrase ‘on a page’: written word can be reread and kept Ambiguity: ‘seam’ = fold/layer of earth; ‘lie’ = lie down, buried/tell a lie Language has the ability to affect (infect) an individual. Dis-ease that can come from confrontation

7. Regular iambic meter: heartbeat - references to breathing and disease also link to life and death Abcb rhyme establishes conventions and rules like those of relationships and communication A word dropped careless on a page May stimulate an eye When folded in perpetual seam The wrinkled maker lie. Infection in the sentence breeds. We may inhale despair At distances of centuries From the Malaria. Abcb rhyme broken in final line of poem: conventions of this relationship also broken - uncomfortable finish; line hangs on like the persona to the grudge he/she holds against the writer of the careless word

8. Reference to event in the past written about in the present tense: even though the injury is long ago the wound does not heal - emphasised by hyperbole of ‘Centuries’ A word dropped careless on a page May stimulate an eye When folded in perpetual seam The wrinkled maker lie. Infection in the sentence breeds. We may inhale despair At distances of centuries From the Malaria.