1. Demonstrating one way “into” a poem or passage

2. Biological wordsColor  clot  flesh – 2x  blood  rot  palms  eyes  hands  fungus  hunger  purple  red  green  dark  rat-grey  bluebeard  blackberries

3. FoodMovement/actions  blackberry  wine  hayfields  cornfields  potato  pepper milk  pea  jam  juice  fruit  hunger-?  leaving  trekked  sent  hoarded -2x  crying  felt  hoped  Knew

4. Narrates and reflects Acknowledges a frenzy of picking and hoarding/rotting/we do it every year

5.  There is movement in first stanza, and stasis or stagnancy in second  Tone shifts from first stanza (violent action, frenzy) to second, which is dark  Narration in first stanza, reflection in second stanza

6. -- Allusion to Bluebeard speaks of irresistible temptation; lends this tone to poem’s actions -- Plate of eyes seems like an image of John the Baptist’s head on a platter; shades poem with idea of sin, self-centeredness, greed -- Seems something like steps of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance

7.  -- Slant or approximate rhyme (maybe just last letters and sounds.) Although the poet organizes the poem in couplets, there are only four rhyming words: clot, not, rot, not.  How does this contribute to understanding? (forwards or echoes the theme)