Tara's response to Washington Etude

Elizabeth Alexander has a really nice flow to the poem. She uses imagery in many different ways. "Dandelions are yellow one day, white the next." She pays attention to things in her environment and her suroundings like all poets do including myself. It seems like she gets a lot of her inspiration from nature. She also is trying to say that the world around you is always changing. "After rain, mushrooms appear in the park, but you can not eat them." I think she use rain to give you an idea of spring, which is also when the locust come out. The title as a major influence on this poem. It also rains a lot in Washington, which is why she used rain in the first line. "A mud-puddle surrounded by brambles and black berries is where God lives." This line through me off topic in the poem. I think she is trying to hide what she is really trying to say, I like to keep people guessing in my poetry as well. "Regard the flare of boming stars the cicadas maraca." I like how she brought back the sound of the cicada in the end, I could hear them rattling from beginning to end.