A word dropped careless on a page May stimulate an eye When folded in perpetual seam The wrinkled maker lie. Infection in the sentence breeds. We may inhale Despair At distances of Centuries From the Malaria. 1st person plural pronoun: persona speaks on responder’s behalf Low modality of ‘may’ and use of indefinite article ‘a Word’ suggest possibility of hypothetical situation being used to illustrate a point about relationships or the power of literature… Visual imagery suggests personal experience

A word dropped careless on a page Emily Dickinson quotes regarding language: “If I read a book and it makes my whole body so cold no fire can ever warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” “A word that breathes distinctly Has not the power to die…”

Some ideas about words… startling vitality organic separate entities, with being, growth, immortality of their own imperishable significance embody some terrifying, mysterious power which approaches omnipotence Compared with malignant germs

A word dropped careless on a page May stimulate an eye When folded in perpetual seam The wrinkled maker lie. Infection in the sentence breeds. We may inhale despair At distances of centuries From the Malaria. Syntax: use of adjective instead of adverb echoes a careless use of language Two even stanzas: cause and effect Sparse punctuation: poem divided by short sentence where focus turns from cause to effect. Enjambment: forces reader to move on and conflicts with traditional rhythm and rhyme.

A word dropped careless on a page May stimulate an eye When folded in perpetual seam The wrinkled maker lie. Infection in the sentence breeds. We may inhale despair At distances of centuries From the Malaria. Prompt, trigger, kindle, activate, motivate Never-ending, permanent, unchanging contagion, corruption, defilement, disease, poison bring about, bring forth, cause, create, deliver, engender, give rise to, hatch, make, multiply, originate, produce absorb, devour, breathe, smell

A word dropped careless on a page May stimulate an eye When folded in perpetual seam The wrinkled maker lie. Infection in the sentence breeds. We may inhale despair At distances of centuries From the Malaria. Indefinite article shows that it could be any word not a specific word Use of adjective instead of adverb echoes a careless use of language Prepositional phrase ‘on a page’: written word can be reread and kept Language has the ability to affect (infect) an individual. Dis-ease that can come from confrontation Ambiguity: ‘seam’ = fold/layer of earth; ‘lie’ = lie down, buried/tell a lie

A word dropped careless on a page May stimulate an eye When folded in perpetual seam The wrinkled maker lie. Infection in the sentence breeds. We may inhale despair At distances of centuries From the Malaria. Regular iambic meter: heartbeat - references to breathing and disease also link to life and death Abcb rhyme establishes conventions and rules like those of relationships and communication Abcb rhyme broken in final line of poem: conventions of this relationship also broken - uncomfortable finish; line hangs on like the persona to the grudge he/she holds against the writer of the careless word

A word dropped careless on a page May stimulate an eye When folded in perpetual seam The wrinkled maker lie. Infection in the sentence breeds. We may inhale despair At distances of centuries From the Malaria. Reference to event in the past written about in the present tense: even though the injury is long ago the wound does not heal - emphasised by hyperbole of ‘Centuries’