55 pages 1 hour read

Dusti Bowling

The Canyon's Edge

Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Middle Grade | Published in 2020

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Literary Devices

Free Verse

In Part 2 of Nora’s narration, she switches from prose to poetry. Aside from a few haiku poems, most are written in free verse, a form that originated in the 19th century with the French vers libre form. Unlike formal poetry that follows specific rules of rhyme and meter, free verse doesn’t adhere to consistent rhyme or rhythm patterns. Even though free verse doesn’t follow the constraints of formal poetry, it includes rhyme and meter—but in ways that more closely replicate the flow and natural patterns of speech. The language itself determines the form of the poem. Nora uses sounds to create rhyme with poetic devices like alliteration, assonance, consonance, and slant rhyme. Repetition of words and phrases and enjambment (carrying a thought or phrase from one line of poetry to the next without a grammatical break) give Nora’s poetry structure. For example, in “Why?” Nora feels helpless, like “a single drop of water / in a raging river, / a single grain of sand / in a suffocating dust storm, / a single speck of palo verde pollen / floating on the dry desert breeze” (57).

Related Titles

By Dusti Bowling

Study Guide

logo

Across The Desert

Dusti Bowling

Across The Desert

Dusti Bowling

Study Guide

logo

Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus

Dusti Bowling

Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus

Dusti Bowling

Study Guide

logo

Momentous Events in the Life of a Cactus

Dusti Bowling

Momentous Events in the Life of a Cactus

Dusti Bowling