Mortality

Robinson Jeffers’s “Where I?” and Tom Sleigh’s “The Very End” address the same theme: mortality. In both poems, the speaker reflects on another person’s—a woman’s—death. For this essay, you will choose ONE of these two poems (“Where I?” or “The Very End”) and make an ARGUMENT about what exactly the speaker learns—about death or the woman—through his reflection on mortality and observation of the woman. In your essay, you are required to quote specific words, phrases, and/or lines from the poem that are relevant to your argument. You must also close read the language in those quotations. Your analysis of those quotations must clearly support and connect to your overall argument. “Where I?” and “The Very End” are sonnets. you may want to consider how the poem’s form relates to the speaker’s reflection on death.

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