From Pine Island to West Virginia

Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota 

In this poem the words chosen describe the place. When the author writes, “ravine behind the empty house,” I could imagine a small water passage in the woods behind a decrepit wooden house. The narrator mentions cowbells and a “field of sunlight.” All of which resemble a typical farm environment. “Two pines” stuck out to me because the title reveals the place “Pine Island” and that is all the narrator mentioned about pines. Horses and chickens are also brought up throughout the poem and those animals are a distinctive characteristic of a farm. The author guides the viewer through the farm as he is surrounded by it. The title explores he is at a farm, but the writer gives you the details, big and small, that give away his location (he never says farm within the poem). 

In Respond to a Rumor That the Oldest Whorehouse in Wheeling, West Virginia Has Been Condemned 

The place can be many different things in this poem and it can be described many different ways, but I think in this case West Virginia is the place and it is described and explored through wording. The reader sees an image of a rover reoccurring. “Down the river,” “to the river and in the river.” At first, the poem begins with a typical depiction of a small town. “twenty-third and Water Streets,” “vinegar works,” “doors open early in the evening,” “swinging their purses, the women.” All of these lines are small details that make up a town, specifically Wheeling, West Virginia. There’s a dramatic turn in this poem when the reference to suicide is brought up. At first the author is illustrating a small town in  West Virginia, then he makes a statement about Ohio in the beginning of the poem, but at the end it develops into a bad place. When he writes about the women drowning in the river, he alludes to suicide and the poem takes a turn. Wright states that the two shores of the river, hell and Bridgeport, Ohio…then he says Ohio is basically worse than hell. and why would anyone want to commit suicide by jumping into the Wheeling river in West Virginia?