Air: "The Love of a Woman"

by Robert Creeley, p. 219-20

There are only three end-stopped lines in this poem: two in the third stanza and one in the last (fourth) stanza. And none but the last stanza is end-stopped. The three enjambed stanzas creates some tension and suspension which seems appropriate to this poem describing the aura of a woman left behind after she dies. There is forward movement in the first two stanzas; the poem moves along quickly through these stanzas, but then when you get to the third stanza, you are slowed by the extra punctuation. The poem hovers (like the aura) here. The line breaks in the last stanza emphasize the words "sang," "song" and "happy" and the tone and the movement seem to pick up again with a more upbeat feel compared to the previous stanza. The poem gives you a resolution and the tension is gone.