Young

“Young” begins with an adult speaker reflecting back on her childhood. In Line 1, Sexton uses synecdoche, or the part representing the whole, with “a thousand doors ago” (Line 1), which suggests viewing the speaker’s life many houses, and years, ago. The second line brings in an emotional state for the speaker’s childhood: “a lonely kid” (Line 2). In the third line, she mentions several more details to flesh out her living arrangement. It seems her house was large, as it had “four / garages” (Lines 3-4), suggesting that her family had financial security and/or she came from a large family. In Line 4, she also notes that the particular memory of the poem takes place in the summer. It was not just any summer, however, because in Line 5, she mentions how long the summer was.

In Line 6, the speaker gets even more specific, mentioning her usual nightly activity as lying on the grass. In Line 7, her imagination brings forth visual imagery and personification, ascribing human characteristics to objects, to describe the “clover wrinkling” (Line 7). She goes on further in the next line to describe what is above her: “the wise stars” (Line 8).