Rita Dove Adolescence-3

"Adolescence---III"' is the third in a set of poems written by Rita Dove early in her career. The purpose of the poem may have been to show what adolescence can be like. More than likely the poem was composed for adult readers to reminisce their childhood years and to remember what being young was like.

The poem is told from the point of view of a young child. Writing it in a first person point of view was clever on Dove's part. Since it's written in first person, the reader feels more compassion toward the character and is able to relate more than if it were told from the point of view of an outside narrator.

As far as organization goes, there are three stanzas which I believe represent three different ages of the main character. There is no rhyming nor iambic pentameter; this lends a casual and more natural tone to the piece. Also, the stanzas don't all have the same number of lines. This makes the poem less structured, formal, and loose as if the character is telling you the story of her past.

Emphasis in the poem is on the awkwardness of adolescence and the wistful thinking of children growing up. In the first stanza Dove writes, "I too grew orange and softer, swelling out starched cotton slips." I know that poems are often ambiguous so my view on this is that at the moment the girl is a young child who is starting to grow out her clothes. She is going through that awkward stage where she's a bit chubby and isn't fitting into her clothes properly. In the next stanza I imagine that the girl is a bit older, maybe in her pre-teen or early teenage years. She wraps her knees, which are scarred from working "the dusty rows

Dove more or less wrote it to remind readers not to take things for granted and to live life to the fullest. The audience of the poem would be adults who could reminisce and reflect on their