Sweet Will

Sweet Will
by Philip Levine
page 317-318

The first lines of this poem really got my attention, and made me interested to read the rest of the piece. ("The man who stood beside me / 34 years ago this night fell / on to the concrete, oily floor / of Detroit Transmission, and we / stepped carefully over him until / he wakened and went back to his press.") Terrible as it may seem, but I liked the image of a washed out and drunk business man falling onto the floor of a station, and the public just step over him in stead of helping him. The line structure of this poem also was interesting. The poem was arranged in 10 stanzas, each 6 lines long, and approximately the same length and amount of syllables. It appeared really clean cut, planned out, and well-organized. The actual lines of the poem, however, were nearly all enjambed. This made me force myself to slow down, because when the sentences are long and take up several lines of text, I have a tendancy to read quickely. I felt the line structure was unique because mixed the characteristics of a really organized poem, as well as one that is less so. There was a clear stanza pattern, however the lines were not as organized as they seemed at first glance.