Point of View

“Vacation” is a poem written in the first-person. The narrator uses the first-person singular pronoun “I” in the very first line of the verse, stating, “I love the hour before takeoff” (1). The narrator then goes on to describe the impression that waiting at a terminal makes on her. It is not completely certain that the narrator is a one-to-one proxy for the author. But the intimacy of the poem’s first disclosure and the tone in which the narrator speaks about generic occurrences pulls the reader into an identification with the narrator that seems to transcend whatever fictive universe is being constructed. Therefore, one immediate way of reading and experiencing the poem is as an exposed inner monologue of the author herself. In her tone, the narrator appeals to a seasoned, sensitive, and thoughtful traveler and thus invokes a likeness with what one might imagine...