Analysis of On Seeing a Neanderthal in the Natural History Museum
The bones convene again,
after forty thousand years –
spine straight, knees bent,
fingers curled around a spear –
Resting? aching?
Perhaps anticipating the mammoth across the room,
making clear the old normal,
the moment’s potential
when time was still possible, beating.
| Scheme | ABCDEFGGE |
|---|---|
| Poetic Form | Nonet (33%) |
| Metre | 010101 1010101 1111 1010101 1010 0101000100101 1010110 010010 111110010 |
| Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
| Characters | 279 |
| Words | 48 |
| Sentences | 4 |
| Stanzas | 1 |
| Stanza Lengths | 9 |
| Lines Amount | 9 |
| Letters per line (avg) | 24 |
| Words per line (avg) | 5 |
| Letters per stanza (avg) | 218 |
| Words per stanza (avg) | 42 |
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"On Seeing a Neanderthal in the Natural History Museum" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 2 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/167667/on-seeing-a-neanderthal-in-the-natural-history-museum>.
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