https://docdrop.org/pdf/The-Art-of-Poetry-How-to-Read-a-Poem-rpbin.pdf/

The Art of Poetry - How to Read a Poem Wolosky 2001

he fifth stanza leads us to a brief look at the structure of the poem. The villanelle allows for a break in its pattern of tercets and tight rhyme, giving away to one quatrain with a repeated rhyme. Just as the structure cracks, as does the poetic voice. The final stanza opens with a dash, which could perhaps be seen as an attempt at a casual tone but in fact serves to slow the poem down here, allowing for yet more emotion to permeate the final words. The reader is forced to consider this “you”, and we see how the poem has taken a journey: starting with the little objects, going through thought and memory, to houses, places and continents forming one huge picture until at the end, zooming in on and pinpointing this “you”. A “you” with, as we infer from the parentheses, a personality, a memorable tone of voice and gestures. A person lost; an irreplaceable entity, in fact.