Winter Swans

Question 1

Language-Natural imagery

Answer 1

‘they halved themselves in the dark water, icebergs of white feather’

Question 2

Structure

Answer 2

The narrator and his partner are separated in the first five stanzas, but they reunite in the final two-‘I noticed our hands, that had, somehow swum the distance between us and folded, one over the other.’

Question 3

Form

Answer 3

The poem is written in tercets (three-line stanzas), which make each stanza look unbalanced reflecting their relationship. The final stanza the couplet shows they have been reunited as a couple ‘and folded, one over the other, like a pair of wings settling after flight.’

Question 4

Theme-Nature

Answer 4

‘the waterlogged earth gulping for breath at our feet’