so many summers
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'So many summers'
'So many summers' by Norman MaCaig was published in 1969. It is based on the personal experience of the poet over many summers spent in Assynt in the North-West of Scotland. And makes a potent general point about life.
The first stanza of the poem is rather like an equation. This gives the start of the poem the feeling that everything is correct and symmetrical, the word neat signifies that everything is in it's place:
"Beside one loch a hinds neat skeleton,
Beside another one, a boat pulled high and dry:
Two neat geometries drawn in the weather:
Two things already dead and still to die.
They all knit together to help form an excellent mental image of the skeleton sitting beside their lochs in symmetry. The poet makes good use of assonance that also links the stanza together: "high and dry / die". The repetition of the word neat reinforces in your mind the image that they are not yet affected by the passage of time and is still new or untouched. The use of alliteration in the last line emphasises the importance of the last line and signifies the importance to the understanding of this point about life. The first stanza opens the poem well and sets the pace for the rest of the poem...