Squares and Angles

My favorite thing to do when I read poetry is to read it without any background information. When I read "Squares and Angles" by Alfonsina Storni the original picture I got in my mind was, most likely, nothing like what the author had in mind. When I first read the poem I pictured a development with a bunch of houses that look exactly the same. And the neighborhood was laid out in a checkerboard fashion, and this was just the image I pictured from the first stanza.  The great thing about this poem is that it covers so much in so few words.  The poem is only two stanzas and a total of eight lines, but in those few words so much is said.  One thing that helps to show meaning in the poem is the repetition.  The repetition is very noticeable because it is so obvious, in that she uses the same phrase three times to start the poem off.  Another interpretation of the this poem could be that the speaker is tired of all the conformity and lack of individualism, this maybe a little closer to the poet’s original meaning.  The speaker notes all of the lack of individualism in her surroundings but it doesn’t hit the speaker personally until the she sheds a tear which is square, thus showing that she is a part of the conformity.  The poem could also be interpreted in others ways as well which show just how much a short poem like this can say.