Summer Nights

Summer Nights: analysis

Introduction

This poem is set in Lamoni, Iowa, a small town marked by a factory siren and a cattle auction. The speaker remembers living with "the tall man" she did not love. She walked the few streets dreaming of Italy while he pointed out manure between the cobblestones.

The poem moves between that past and a present in which she admits to lies. It ends with "My love" at home and nights spent crossing off days. It is a quiet poem about restlessness, honesty and time passing in a narrow place.

Summary

The poem opens with a place name set on its own line. It reads like a heading. It locates everything that follows in Lamoni, Iowa.

A factory siren tells workers it is time to go home. It tells them the evening has begun. The speaker then starts a memory of living "with the tall man."

She did not love him, she says. She would wander the streets of the town. As she walked, she dreamed of Italy.

She walked the "handful of avenues" with him too. He would point and say look there. Between "pink cobblestones" lies "manure like mortar."

The smell of the manure is sweet on Wednesday nights. Those are the nights before the auction. Then "the misery of cows" greets her.

She is heading home through the town. The lake goes quiet, "tired of my lies." She asks when she will tell truths again.

The siren sounds once more, and "My love is home." At night the two of them stay in. They "X the days."

Themes and meaning

One theme is the gap between dream and place. The speaker dreams "of Italy" while walking a town of a "handful of avenues." The man beside her shows her manure in the cobblestones. Her romance and his plain eye for the ground pull in opposite directions.

A second theme is honesty. Line 15 speaks of "my lies," and line 16 asks, "When will I tell truths again?" The poem does not say what the lies are. They may concern the man she "didn't love," or the way she lives in the town. The question shows a speaker uneasy with herself.

A third theme is time and routine. The siren opens and nearly closes the poem. It tells people when the day ends. The last line has the couple "X the days," as on a calendar. Readers can take this as counting down to an escape or simply marking time.

A fourth theme is shared confinement. The cows waiting for auction carry a "misery" that "greets" her. Their fate quietly mirrors her own sense of being held in place.

Tone

The tone is wistful and restless. Dreaming "of Italy" in a small Iowa town carries a soft longing. The word "Trekking" makes a short walk sound weary and long.

Irony enters with the "sweet smell" of manure. The speaker finds a kind of fondness in what is unpleasant. It is the nearest the poem comes to affection for the town.

In the sixth stanza the tone turns guilty and searching. The lake is "tired of my lies," and the question in line 16 sounds sincere. The close is flat and ambiguous. "My love is home" can sound warm or resigned, and the crossed-off days keep the ending uncertain.

Form and structure

The poem has 18 lines in seven stanzas. A one-line place heading comes first, then five tercets, then a closing couplet. It is free verse with no regular metre. Lines run from four to thirteen syllables. There is no end rhyme.

The only matching line ending is the word "home", near the start and again in the closing couplet, each time beside the siren. That return frames the poem. Several sentences run across stanza breaks, such as "the tall man" into "whom I didn't love." The enjambment gives the poem a drifting, unsettled movement.

Poetic devices

Personification line 2

The factory siren tells workers The siren speaks like a boss. It shows how the town's time is ruled from outside its people.

Enjambment line 4

When living with the tall man The sentence breaks across the stanza before the admission that she did not love him. The pause delays and sharpens the confession.

Contrast line 6

dreaming of Italy Italy stands for beauty and elsewhere. It sets her inner life against the plain town around her.

Simile line 10

manure like mortar Manure fills the gaps like the cement between bricks. The repeated m sound also makes the comparison stick.

Irony line 11

The sweet smell of it Calling manure sweet is unexpected. It suggests the town has become familiar, even dear, despite itself.

Personification line 13

the misery of cows greets me The cows' suffering meets her like a person. It links their captivity to her own feeling of being held.

Personification line 15

Lake quiets, tired of my lies. The lake seems weary of her. Nature becomes a silent witness to her dishonesty.

Rhetorical question line 16

When will I tell truths again? The only question in the poem. It turns the poem inward and admits a moral unease.

Repetition line 17

The siren. The siren of line 2 returns. It closes the circle of the day and of the poem.

Symbol line 18

X the days Crossing off days on a calendar can stand for waiting, endurance or a countdown. The poem does not say which.

Words worth knowing

Trekking

Making a long or hard journey on foot. Used of a few short streets, it is wry.

mortar

The paste of lime or cement that binds bricks or stones together.

auction

Here a livestock sale, where the cows are sold.

X

Used as a verb, to mark each day with an X, as when crossing days off a calendar.

What readers have said

• Steve found the poem disjointed and full of contradictions, asking how the man she did not love fits with "My love is home" and what the lake's tiredness means. Steve, 2005
• Ed read the poem as wanting more time with her partner, took the lake as her mind growing still, and wondered if the factory might be a slaughterhouse. Ed, 2005
• Armand argued that the few avenues say more about the couple's relationship than about the town's actual streets. Armand, 2006
• Heather was unimpressed, saying the poem needed more work and more energy. heather, 2005