e language arts, so each reader will take something different away with them. This is what I felt was going on under the surface, possibly because of the use of the strong despicable to describe the boss.VIIRhyme and MeterMeter refers to the pattern of stressed and unstressed sounds in the poem; when the work is read aloud, the stresses combine to form patterns that repeat. In this work, however, there are no such stresses, or repeating patterns. It is a free verse poem.Likewise, it has no rhyme. Rhyme is the repetition of sounds that are identical: the fat cat sat on the mat. Villanueva does not use rhyme, perhaps because it has a distancing effect. When we read a poem that rhymes, we often get caught up in the rhyme scheme and then become aware that we are reading poetry. Villanueva wants us to remain in the field with the migrant workers, and so does not interpose the extra layer of distance between them and us.VIIIAllusionAn allusion is an indirect reference or casual mention; i.e., the speaker alluded to the budget amendment in the course of his remarks. In Day-Long Day, there are no such casual mentions. Everything is immediate, direct, and sensational (as in we can feel the sensation of the heat, the pain, the disappointment, the resentment). The work is not casual in any sense. IXThemeThe main theme of the poem is the hopelessness of the migrants condition. They work as they do because that is all they know. This is the third generation to work in the fields in the sweltering Texas summer, and their hope for a better lifeor at least for a better life for the boyis dashed by the despicable boss who would rather have the child working in the fields than going to school.The workers dream daydreams that are not far removed from heat-induced hallucinations, and their only relief is a drink of water from an old jug. They spend their lives in an endless cycle of misery and poverty: row-trapped,zigzagging through summer-l...
