Crossing the swamp comments

Extended metaphor: the swamp is a metaphor, described as “struggle, closure,” “the center of everything.” The speaker struggles trying to grasp it in its entirety: bones knocking, trying “for foothold, fingerhold, mindhold [italics added],” the last of this list qualifying that this journey extends beyond the physical, it is a trial of mental conception, of putting one’s mind around a complicated problem.

Important also to note that the relationship between the speaker and swamp seems at first one of fear, yet it is further qualified through the speaker’s immersion in it as not a negative thing, i.e. “I feel not wet so much as painted and glittered….”

The speaker feels a sense of rebirth coming from meeting this challenge—“a poor dry stick given one more chance by the whims of swamp water… [to] make of its life a breathing palace of leaves.”

By completely immersing oneself in what was once feared (represented by the mud, metaphorically), the speaker feels “not wet”—presumably wet is the negative outcome the speaker fearfully predicted—“so much as painted and glittered”—a far more positively connotative way to describe the experience. In summary, only by getting dirty, so to speak, can the “dry stick” of the poem [the speaker] become something teeming with life.

Through extended metaphor, the poet shows how facing something very difficult—some all encompassing problem—can lead to a triumphant, even exultant outcome, a chance for renewal which defies the enervating effects of time, and the negative, self-fulfilling prophecies of fear and stagnation.

Consonance: the presence of consonance in such lists as “foothold, fingerhold, mindhold” highlight these words as important and equal—the swamp is every bit as significant a mental obstacle as it is a physical one.

Enjambment/structure: the arrangement of words on the page, aside from creating a physical, zigzagging shape suggestive of all the complex, intricacies of this problem facing the speaker, also incorporate frequent use of enjambment to emphasize key phrases throughout the poem. The enormity of this metaphorical dilemma is highlighted by placing “cosmos, the center” on its own line, as with other standout phrases like “is struggle,” “closure—,” again highlighting that this is in fact a metaphor, one that stands for an enormous dilemma on the part of the speaker. The final image of the poem, that is, the speaker’s ultimate transformation by facing this colossal and chimerical conundrum is highlighted by giving the end result its own line as a “palace of leaves.”

Alliteration: the poet often employs alliteration in the service of imagery. The repetition of the “b” sound in “dark burred faintly belching bogs,” and the sibilance found in “swamp… struggle, closure—pathless, seamless, peerless” are onomatopoeically suggestive of the bubbling and hissing of a swamp, particularly emphasizing how noisome, foreign, and frightening such a place can be. This adds to the impression of the fear the speaker must surmount in light of such seemingly insuperable obstacles, and, by escaping “such slick crossings… that sink silently into the black, slack earthsoup” (note again the repeated “s” sound, this time reminiscent of the sucking sound of mud), this enables the speaker to grow from such an experience, to triumph from his previously victimized state—“a poor dry stick”—and become something far greater, “a breathing palace of leaves.”