The cyanide jar seals life, as sonnets move

towards final stiffness. Cased in a white glare

these specimens stare for peering boys, to prove

strange certainties. Plane dogsled and safari

assure continuing range. The sweep-net skill,                              5

the patience, learning, leave all living stranger.

Insect -- or poem -- waits for the fix, the frill

precision can effect, brilliant with danger.

What law and wonder the museum spectres

bespeak is cryptic for the shivery wings,                                  10

the world cut-diamond-eyed, those eyes' reflectors,

or herbal grass, sunned motes, fierce listening.

Might sheened and rigid trophies strike men blind

like Adam's lexicon locked in the mind?

1. What, in your view, is the central theme of this poem? What argument or point does the poet want to make here?

2. What kind (or genre) of poem is this? (See the title!) How does the poet develop or change or use this structure to make her argument?

3. Choose a key image or a key word from the poem and explain how it contributes to the theme you have noted in question 1.

4. Scan any line from the poem. How do rhythm and metre reinforce meaning in the poem?

5. What commentary on the nature and practice of writing -- whether writing poetry or writing in general -- does this poem make? How does the poem invite its readers to rethink the human relationship to language and meaning?