Point of View

"November" is told from the first-person perspective of a speaker who views the coming winter with a mixture of melancholy and acceptance. The poem opens with a performer persona announcing the end of October. The lines "Show's over, folks. And didn't October do / A bang-up job?" convey less sentimentality than they do a wry and bittersweet mood. Casually addressing readers as "folks" speaks to the collective experience of the changing seasons (at least those in the Northern Hemisphere in places where autumn transforms the scenery). However, the entire poem does not maintain explicitly theatrical imagery. The fond yet detached voice changes in the second tercet when the speaker asks, "Did I love it enough, the full-throttle foliage, / While it lasted? Was I dazzled?" (5-6). This tone expresses nostalgia, regret, and self-reflection. In addition, the speaker communicates an awareness of transience. Nothing lasts forever, and this...