Analyzing Mary Tallmountain's Poem 'The Last Wolf'

The Last Wolf Analysis
Without imagery, words authors use to appeal to the five senses, reading would be meaningless. Mary TallMountain (an Alaskan Native)’s poem, The Last Wolf, has a whole slew of imagery that livens the poem. It is a tear-evoking, descriptive, and partially futuristic poem.
Although it is evident that the poem has an effect on your mood, it is a very pessimistic poem because it introduces the problem, but the problem never gets solved. One example of the mood, a sad one, is on lines 1-8. “the last wolf hurried toward me through the ruined city….down the steep smashed warrens….their lighted elevators useless”. To some people, it could make them cry, or tear up. Really, the last wolf, a ruined city, smashed warrens, and useless (probably broken) elevators. That’s pretty sad and moody.

Like stated in the first paragraph, The Last Wolf is a very descriptive poem with lots of imagery.

Imagery is “the formation of mental images” (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/imagery?s=t). Some examples of imagery are on lines 9-12, “passing the flickering red and green of traffic signals...the mystery of his wild loping gait”. Flickering, mystery, wild, and loping are all descriptive words that help you imagine what it would actually look like. Although there are many more descriptive words and phrases in this poem, if they were all mentioned, the whole poem would have to be quoted, which is not good. This makes the poem more interesting and

enticing.
In case you were wondering, the poem is “partially” futuristic-not completely futuristic-because she (the author) is predicting what will happen in the future, and mentioning what unfortunate things are going on in some places right now. On line 4, the poem states that there are a lot of “smashed warrens”. That means that wolves’ habitats are being destroyed, which is happening around the world with other non-humans (animals, plants, fungi, etc.). Of course, humans are mammals. To relate that back to the topic, mammals are destroying other mammals habitats to make their own “habitats”. If you didn’t understand that, it is basically humans are destroying animals’ habitat to make their own.
To summarize, The Last Wolf is a poem that will make you cry, imagine it, and relate to it all in about three stanzas. On the topic of future, this is also happening in the world. Some people are trying to stop it, while other people are just sitting back and watching it happen. Are you proactive or reactive? Are you doing or watching? To end how Mary TallMountain did, “Yes, I said. I know what they have done.”