My Love Sent Me a List

The poem’s heavy allusion to Shakespeare places it within the sonnet tradition. However, Davis’s poem upends so many traditional aspects of the Shakespearean sonnet that it almost becomes its own thing. Davis’s departure from the traditional form underscores her role as a contemporary American writer who has a history of writing in free verse. These associations with free verse are important because they permeate the poem in so many ways: The use of normal speech patterns, as opposed to mostly strict iambic pentameter, the lack of a rhyme scheme, and the heavy use of internal rhyme, assonance, and consonance, align this poem just as much with free verse as with formal poetry.

Over the last two centuries, there has been a massive shift in poetry from a focus on strict meter and form to free verse. Davis’s poem is a hybrid of both. While that isn’t necessarily unique, what is unique is the hybrid form being applied to a poem that is so inspired by Shakespeare’s sonnets.