Semansky is an instructor of literature and composition. In this essay, Semansky considers Lee's voice.

When critics discuss a writer's voice, they are using the term figuratively. They do not literally mean the way a writer might sound if his or her poem were read aloud. Voice, rather, refers to the writer's relationship to audience and subject matter and to the purpose he or she has for writing. Lee's voice in "Early in the Morning" is typical of the voice he uses throughout his work. It is sad and wistful and full of loss, and it expresses a self grappling with memory to make sense of the present.

Consisting of a list of concrete nouns that economically build a scene, the poem's first stanza is obsessed with time, with getting things just right. What difference does it make if the speaker's mother combs her hair before or...