Corn Maze

By: Justin Long http://www.severscornmaze.com

Biographical Information:

Barber has taught writing and literature at Middlebury College, the Harvard Writing Program, MIT’s Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies, and the Emerson College graduate writing program. He has also been writer-in-residence at Cornell University, Northwestern University, and Lynchburg College. He has appeared as a guest editor at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference since 2006, and currently serves as a final judge for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Prize. He also writes on natural history, music, and art.

David Barber is the author of two collections of poems published by Northwestern University Press:Wonder Cabinet (2006) and The Spirit Level (1995), the winner of the Terrence Des Pres Prize. He is poetry editor of The Atlantic, where he has been a staff editor since 1994.His poems and reviews have appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times Book Review, The Boston Globe, New England Review, Poetry, Paris Review, The New Republic, Parnassus, The New Criterion, Slate, Virginia Quarterly Review, and many other places.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org

Stanza 1

Here is where You can get nowhere Faster than everAs you go underDeeper and deeper

Referring to the corn maze. The poet creates imagery in

this poem: He creates an image of a corn maze, and how it feels to be in a corn maze.

Stanza 2

In the fertile smotherOf another acreLike any otherYou can’t peer overAnd then another

End Rhyme This means that every corn maze seems to be the same

Stanza 3

And everywhereYou veer or hareThere you areFarther and fartherAfield than before

Imagery- This creates a picture of the corn being so tall that you cant see over it.

Stanza 4

But on you blunderIn the verdant meanderAs if   the answerTo looking for coverWere to bewilder

Stanza 5

Your inner minotaurAnd near and far wereNeither here nor thereAnd where you areIs where you were

This means that it all looks the same everywhere in the corn maze. It always looks like you are in the same place.

IMAGERY

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Structure of the Poem

David Barber arranged this poem ”Corn Maze” to have:• 5 stanzas• 25 lines • 5 lines per stanza

Here is where You can get nowhere Faster than everAs you go underDeeper and deeper

In the fertile smotherOf another acreLike any otherYou can’t peer overAnd then another

And everywhereYou veer or hareThere you areFarther and fartherAfield than before

But on you blunderIn the verdant meanderAs if   the answerTo looking for coverWere to bewilder

Your inner minotaurAnd near and far wereNeither here nor thereAnd where you areIs where you were

The poet uses imagery throughout the whole poem to create a picture in your head.