End of April

“The End of April,” is a 24-line lyric poem, divided into eight stanzas of three lines, or tercets. As a lyric, while it employs narrative elements such as character and setting, the poem concentrates on the speaker’s emotional state and observation. The poem is written in contemporary language and does not employ rhyme. Its lines, however, are of mostly of equal length and employ purposeful sound techniques that help create flow. This allows for a feeling of tension to emerge.

The poem also employs the technique of a distanced-remembering first person narration that allows for a movement from memory, “thinking of you” (Line 4), into an observation of the current discovery of the eggshell, back into the effects of the past upon the present, in which the beloved is “now gone / and lives in [the speaker’s] heart” (Lines 20-21). This allows for a sense of movement to pervade the poem without the speaker physically moving.

Levin uses juxtaposition between the spring setting of “The End of April” and the sense of loss the speaker is feeling to illustrate