300 Goats

The poem “300 Goats” makes liberal use of punctuation. If punctuation is considered a way to indicate pauses and stops—and in so doing, indicate breath—then the poet gives us a detailed map by which to read this poem. After the title tells the reader the subject of the poem—“300 Goats”—it proceeds to a first, short phrase with a full stop: “In icy fields” (Line 1). The title and the first line form a fragment rather than a sentence. The first line is capitalized, despite its syntactical connection to the title. The effect is to encourage the reader to give full attention to the line before dropping into the next line. Sitting alone on the line, “icy fields” (Line 1) sets an ominous stage.

The use of the question mark introduces the instability of not knowing, a kind of helplessness or anxiety on the part of the speaker. The parentheses allow for an aside, an associative thought that occurs within the moment, without taking the reader entirely out of the moment. There’s an em-dash for the dramatic pause before the difficult question: “Another frigid night swooping down— / Aren’t you worried about them?” (Lines 10-11). The use of italics for the last word—“goats” (Line 15)—creates emphasis and delivers the punchline.