cozy apologia

• "this lamp, the wind still rain" rita dove compares ordinary objects with imagery found in traditional love poems"

  the lamp shows a bright happy relationship compared to the depressing rain
• the fist stanza has a strict AABB rhyme scheme however as the poem goes on the rhyme scheme becomes jumbled reflecting their ordinary not perfect relationship

  "to set me free : one eye smiling, the other firm on the enemy" he is associated with freedom and saftey
• she uses stereotypical images of chivalry to show humour in her exaggeration . she speaks in a sarcastic tone showing she isn't taking herself seriously


  "dappled mare"
• her humour shows she doesnt take herself or her partner seriously
• she undermines the danger of the hurricane mocking its name "big bad floyd " ( hurricanes usually had female names). she also describes it "nudging up the coast" the verb nudging is not very threatening
• light - hearted extended metaphor shows that her old relationships had no substance 


  "thin as licorice and as chewy "
• she continues to belittle the storm with collaquial language "cussing up a storm "
• bird imagery in stanza three links the couple together "aerie im perched in mine .... twin desks "
• "content but falling short of devine"


  emphasises their ordinary relationship
• this is an autobiographical poem of her and her husband while the hurricane Floyd is approaching