Great Regulars: Adrienne Rich's "Living in Sin"

is one of the world's best free verse poems.

The poem is one lump chunk on the page but sections itself by lines: 1-7, 8-14, 15-22, and 23-26. The visual ("a pair of beetle-eyes would fix her own"), auditory ("each separate star would writhe / under the milkman's tramp"), and olfactory ("last night's cheese") imagery is superb, precisely supporting the theme of disillusionment.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Rich's 'Living in Sin'

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The pseudo-scientific principles that became widespread with the rise of Darwinism led to the failure to grasp spiritual truths that appear in scriptural texts. Thus the notion of a virgin birth becomes, not only not debatable, but the object of scorn and ridicule.

The speaker in [Malcolm M.] Sedam’s poem, posing as "Joseph," therefore puts words in that ancient wise man’s mouth whose ideas Joseph would find outrageous: "Some things were never explained to me." Everything he needed to know was, in fact, explained to him by the angel that appeared to him.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Sedam's 'Joseph'

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But soul love beckons with a perpetual "summer’s welcome," even though it is rarer than the vestiges of ordinary love. The lovers will yearn three-times more strongly for this level of soul love, even before they are aware of that yearning.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 56

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The speaker does not question his Muse as a demanding lover might, out of jealousy, question a lover about his whereabouts. He refuses to behave like "a sad slave." He does not blight his mind and heart with wild imaginings that his Muse is off cavorting with others.

from Linda Sue Grimes: Suite101.com: Shakespeare Sonnet 57

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