When analyzing “crossing the swamp” by Mary Oliver there are a lot of significant and interesting things about it including: Extended metaphor, where the poem is compered with Olives real life struggles and life blocks, the other one is consonance, this is where the poem does not only apply to life but also manually, and finally with the use of alliteration and the repetition of a sound to transform the dead swamp into a “ bulling hissing swamp”. and altogether into the spit image of Oliver’s life of pain and gain.

The swamp is a metaphor of its own. The poem describes something as a “struggle,closure”.It is interpreted as “the center of everything” this is because the author of the poem describes the swamp as the center of her life. …show more content…
The poem employs alliteration in the form of imagery. The best example of this is with the use of the repetition of the “b” sound in “dark burred faintly belching bogs”. This suggests of bubbling and hissing of the swamp. This emphasizes the real fear that the speaker has for the swamp and its importance to over come this fear of the unpredictable world she lives in. The out come of this is that the speaker overcomes her fears in the second half of the poem. This is emphasized as “such like crossings.. that sink silently into the black, slack, earth soup” In this instance she repeats the sound “S”. This sounds of mud and mean she is growing from the past experience she gain. In the end if one has perseverance and a strong will to over come obstacles and deep problems, at the end the experience gain from this will ultimately lead to something greater like “a breathing palace of leaves”.

In conclusion Mary Oliver in “Crossing the swamp” emphasizes the importance of self believe and that with experience is life struggles one become a better and greater person, because of the gain and the fearless one has at the end of the journey.
In addition to this she states that she is now reborn and given a second