What the Living Do

“What the Living Do” is written in free verse, with no definable rhyme scheme or meter. As with many of Howe’s poems, the lines are long and roughly consistent in length, until the last line. Howe makes consistent use of enjambment across her long sentences, but avoids abrupt or confusing line breaks. Sentences vary in length and reflect the natural cadence of human speech. The second lines of some stanzas are enjambed with the following stanzas, allowing for even pacing and flow, and for thematic connection between stanzas.

The poem is formally broken into eight two-line stanzas, but the stanzas do not coincide directly with shifts in subject matter or mood. Subtle instances of alliteration, rhyme, consonance, or assonance are incidental (“the bag breaking” (Line 6), “[s]lamming the car door shut in the cold” (Line 10) just as they are in everyday speech. These formal choices augment the poem’s stylistic and tonal messages. Like many of her contemporaries, Howe describes quotidian life in a clear, direct