16 pages • 32 minutes read
Galway KinnellWait
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1980A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Form and Meter
Kinnell’s free verse poem is written in 26 lines divided into two uneven stanzas. Like much of Kennell’s work, and the majority of late 20th century poetry, the poem is written in free verse. It has nonmetrical, nonrhyming lines resembling normal speech patterns. Line breaks are strategically deployed—alternating between brief thoughts isolated on one line, and longer reflections linking over multiple lines towards the end of each stanza. For example, the opening plea “Wait, for now” (Line 1) appears on its own line and bears more visual impact standing alone. This emphasizes the simple, direct plea to the listener, which is later repeated in even starker terms at the beginning of the second stanza with a simple “Wait” (Line 16).
Yet, as Kinnell compares the second-hand gloves to the desolation of lovers, for example, these lines flow together toward the end of the stanza, as he deploys both caesura and enjambment to link thoughts between lines. For example, in this sentence, Kinnell uses enjambment over multiple lines, while caesura marked by colons and semicolons work to separate clauses as well: “The desolation / of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness / carved out of such tiny beings as we are / asks to be filled; the need / for the new love is faithfulness to the old” (Lines 11-15). In particular, “asks to be filled; the need” (Line 14) occupies its own line but makes an important link between ideas in the poem. Here, the semicolon does double duty, both separating two sentences with a caesura but likewise linking together an observation and its meaning as Kinnell builds to his observation about love’s faithfulness.
Repetition
Kinnell uses repetition in “Wait,” first within a single stanza, then repeating words and ideas between stanzas. The repetition first occurs as anaphora in the first stanza with the repeated assurance that “Personal events will become interesting again. / Hair will become interesting. / Pain will become interesting / Buds that open out of season will become interesting” (Lines 5-8). This repetition has the effect of slowing down the reader and adding rhythm to the free verse poem, which links to the earlier idea of time passing, seasons changing, and moments faithfully ticking by on a clock.
Visually, the lines that mention “hair” (Line 6) and “pain” (Line 7) receive special attention, standing out as bracketed between the first and last lines of this repetition, and later repeated as images in the second stanza with “music of hair, / music of pain” (Lines 21-22). With this repetition of images and concepts, “hair” and “pain” receive special emphasis for the reader—an intentional literary device of Deep Image poetry that allows the reader to contemplate the feelings and thoughts the image evokes without necessarily divulging their literal meaning. Whatever feelings the images of “hair” and “pain” may have evoked in the first stanza are then modified by the new context as they are repeated in the second stanza as a form of music.
Allusion
Kinnell makes two subtle allusions to Greek mythology at the opening and ending of “Wait,” which engage the reader’s prior knowledge of that mythology to add meaning to the poem. In the third line of the text, he asks the listener “But trust the hours” (Line 3) and later concludes in the last line “rehearsed by the sorrows” (Line 26). “The hours” (Line 3) and “the sorrows” (Line 6) are both references to personifications in Greek mythology: The Hours—or the Horae—were considered goddesses of the seasons, and of order and justice, while the Sorrows—or the Algae—were the personification of pain and strife. Allusion allows Kinnell to tie the listener’s pain to some of the oldest stories in Western mythology, adding empathy by linking the listener’s heartbreak to the universal experience. Similarly, these allusions to pain and justice reinforce the message that time and the passing of the seasons will mete justice, while the sorrows are only a rehearsal of life’s greater story.
Related Titles
By Galway Kinnell
