From the book of light (1993), "imagining bear" Summary

This poem is dedicated to the poet's grandfather, "Alonzo Moore Sr," which is the subtitle. The poem is written in unrhymed, lumbering couplets, the sounds of the language echoing the bear-like nature of the grandfather. Each couplet starts with "imagine him," asking the reader to imagine the grandfather in various ways. The first couplet imagines the grandfather too wide and too wide to enter parlors. The second couplet imagines the grandfather with a grizzly "hide," hairy even to his own eye. The third couplet imagines him with a smell like bark, "rank and bittersweet." The fourth couplet sees the man lumbering and growling. The fifth breaks the pattern by asking to give the grandfather an old guitar and "a bottle of booze." The sixth imagines the family's...