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    A Study Guide for May Swenson's "Question"
    A Study Guide for May Swenson's "Question"
    A Study Guide for May Swenson's "Question"
    Ebook33 pages21 minutes

    A Study Guide for May Swenson's "Question"

    By Gale and Cengage

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    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for May Swenson's "Question," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateSep 28, 2016
    ISBN9781535831703
    A Study Guide for May Swenson's "Question"

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      Book preview

      A Study Guide for May Swenson's "Question" - Gale

      14

      Question

      May Swenson

      1954

      Introduction

      May Swenson was born into a large Mormon family in Utah but, soon after college, moved to New York City, where she became a fixture of the literary scene from the early 1950s to the late 1980s. Her poetry is not political in nature, but it has a powerful impact for the way that she questions the very nature of existence, appreciates the natural world with focused detail, and speaks openly about the poet's erotic experiences with other women at a time when such relationships were often hidden. Much of her influence in the world of literature came from the work that she did in addition to her own writing, such as editing the influential New Directions press at a time when it was the voice of the avant-garde and her chancellorship of the Academy of American Poets for the last decade of her long life.

      Question is often included in poetry anthologies because it is a clear example of Swenson's work at its best. In this poem, the speaker wonders what life will be like after death separates her from her body. She speaks about the body in a sequence of easily recognizable metaphors: a house, a horse, a faithful dog. Talking about death this way allows readers to feel the looming sadness and the poet's sense of loss, an acknowledgment of the too-seldom-discussed emotional attachment between body and mind. After asking how she will cope with this separation, Swenson ends the poem with an even larger question, wondering what she will do when leaving her body exposes her to the world, leaving her with nowhere to

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