Analyzing Mary Tallmountain's Poem 'The Last Wolf'

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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. …show more content…

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

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