The Centaur poem-essay PDF

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Nicholas Nerys Curiale AP English The Centaur By May Swenson

In the realm between human and animal forces, the author experiences a favorable moment in her life, the summer when she was ten years old. The poem consists of her living two lives, as a human and a horse, also known as a centaur. Throughout various times in the poem, one can get a sense that the author has a strong sexual drive. Also, a reader can pick up the sense that the girl is actually a centaur with comparisons to a horse’s body ad her own. Also, the reader can actually see a little girl play by the poem alluding to four of the human senses; sight, touch, hearing, and taste. Even though one may not find sexual intentions clear while reading this poem, there are various examples that suggest the girl has sexual urgencies, as if she is going through her puberty stage. The use of diction shows that riding this horse gives her the “exhilaration factor”. In lines 17 the author writes, “I’d straddle and canter him fast”, and lines 46-48, “quiet, negligent riding…my thighs hugging his ribs.” Clearly, there is a very strong sense of sexuality here, as she has a lusty feeling for this horse. According to line 38, she was “the horse and the rider” and in lines 23-24 she says that the, “Willow knob with the strap jouncing between my thighs.” Going through puberty causes a rage in hormones, essentially making her urge for sexual satisfaction, even through the simple actions of riding a horse.

May Swenson compares her body to that of a horse, making it more believable that she was a centaur. A centaur is a creature that had the body of a horse and the head and torso of a man, but in this case, the head and torso of the ten year old girl. In words and phrases such as: “my hair flopped to the side like the mane of a horse” (lines 29-30), “I shied and skittered and reared” (line 33), and “my two hoofs beat a gallop along the bank,” (lines 41-42). All of these add to the allusion Swenson makes to the Centaur. Swenson also uses similes like “my head and neck were mine, yet they were shaped like a horse,” (line 27), and also metaphors like “I was the horse and the rider,” (line 38), to help create the relationship between the child at play and the Centaur. Swenson also uses imagery to help describe the girl at play. Swenson uses images to appeal to all one’s senses. She appeals to the sense of touch with lines like “peeled him slick and clean” (line 13), “spanked my own behind” (line 40), “the wind twanged in my mane” (line 43), “my feet on clean linoleum” (line 53), and “I smoothed my skirt,” (line 51). The poem appeals to the sense of taste when the girl tries to eat the clover. It also appeals to sight and the sense of hearing through such phrases as “a willow grove” (line 7), “up the grass bank to the path” (line 18), “my nickering pony’s head” (line 26), and “I shied and skittered and reared” (line 33). The images enable the reader to see the young girl at play. Through the author’s use of diction and imagery, the reader may connect to this poem in many ways. Through the connections of sexual desire, and appealing to the senses of humans, it easy to see how the ten year old girl connects to the horse, becoming a centaur....