Part 1 consists of a single free verse narrative poem about falling in love that serves as the exposition of the narrative. A free verse poem has no fixed form, meter, or rhyme scheme but evokes feeling through word choice and other literary devices. By beginning the narrative with this form, the author highlights freedom and feeling over traditional poetic form. This also establishes the author’s use of symbolism and mood over poetic form, demonstrating the intentionality of the language and images as well as the organization of the poems and parts to control the flow of the narrative.

Mood is distinct from atmosphere, which represents the approach an author takes to create mood. The mood refers to the emotions a work of poetry or narrative evokes in a reader. For example, the mood of Part 3 reflects the disillusionment of the author’s changing perspective as she witnesses the impact of the war in poems like “Tarantulas and Scorpions” when she wonders about the “many soldiers [who] died / in revolution” (74).