Hart is a published author and freelance writer. In the following essay, Hart looks for the story in Maxwell's poem and analyzes why Maxwell left out certain details.

Hidden within a poem often lies a fuller story. Maxwell's poem “The Nerve” is a good example of this. This poem, as with many other verses, can be read in many different ways. In large part, that is what makes poetry so fascinating. Some people may read poetry for the sheer beauty of its construction, with the poet's meticulous attention to rhyme and meter kept foremost in mind. Others might read poetry for the beautiful and succinct images that such writing can produce. But some readers pay special attention to the story of a poem, searching behind the short, clipped lines in each crisp stanza, trying to conceive a fuller picture of the material the poet left out. Such...