Wind Surfer Essay

356 Words2 Pages
Travis Writing David Solway was born in Montreal December 8th 1941. He was educated at McGill University where, in 1962, he earned a Bachelor’s degree in philosophy and English. He is known as a poet, essayist, and a teacher. He spent an entire year on the Greek island of Paxos, where he wrote two books, Education Lost and The Anatomy of Arcadia. While their one day he was admiring a windsurfer’s calisthenics. He thought that is a true poet, busy crafting a myth out of himself, achieving balance in a turbulent world. David Solway is clearly describing a beautiful day wind surfing. He uses many images making the reader feel as if they were windsurfing. They also would know what to expect from the way he describes this thrill ride if someone who read it has never windsurfed before. His tone is more of passionate, and as if he were explaining a favorite hobby that he enjoys doing. He even uses a technique Carmen figura to give the poem a sense of surfing out and into the shore. From the first line he can have you visualize a first person view as to what it looks like while riding. “It rides upon the wrinkled hide of water, like an upturned hull of a small canoe or kayak.” (1-3) He even throws in some images referring to how it moves “Then a puffed up right angle of wind pushes it forward, out into the bay, where suddenly it glitters into speed,” (9-11) “Glitters” is a good choice word for speed! In the next two stanzas Solway describes how the windsurfer handles the board on the water. (16-22) “Part of the sleek apparatus he controls, immaculate nerve of balance, plunge and curvet, he clinches all component movements into single motion.” Basically with his flawless balance, he can get air under the board in a single motion. He continues in expressing the way the board rides, and hits the water until the surfer maneuvers it back toward the shore. “Hits the vertex

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