In Bishop’s Five Flights Up, there is heavy usage of personification of animals and the environment which demonstrates Bishop’s outwardly observative state. Birds are primarily personified in this poem in their actions and interactions with the environment. In this way, dogs are also personified in the first and third stanzas. This personification is an extension of the speaker’s thoughts and enables their state of mind to shine through. Specifically, these personifications show the …show more content…
By beginning the poem with the line “still dark,” the speaker is demonstrating that night has not completely ended thus setting the poem up to be a transition phase in existence or state of being for the speaker. By doing this, it opens the poems to be either inwardly or outwardly perceptive. Inward in the sense that one may still be in turmoil mentally and outwardly more to the literal sense of the phrase “still dark.” This transition happens throughout the morning as the speaker observes inwardly, Stafford, or outwardly, Bishop. This transition works to demonstrate each speaker’s respective states of