Analyzing Adelia Prado's Poem 'Successive Deaths'

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“Successive Deaths” by Adelia Prado is a complex poem that deals with death, grievance, and rebirth. Prado uses free verse in her poem to express the grievance she felt of losing the three most important and influential people in her life. Losing her sister, her mother, and her father while also going through the physical changes of puberty is difficult to deal with but in the end she recalls those moments in an effort to move on from her grief. Prado begins her poem with the remembrance of her sisters death. When my sister died, I cried a great deal And was quickly consoled. There was a new dress And a thicket in the backyard where I could exist. Prado remembers the death of her sister and the overwhelming feeling of grief that

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