Style
Personification
Personification is a figure of speech in which
human attributes are assigned to a non-human
subject. The tornado is described in terms of a
woman. The first instance of this is the use of the
feminine pronoun. The poem also assigns dis-
tinctly human traits to the storm, such as stating
that its sound is like sighing. Other human fea-
tures are attributed to the tornado, including
hair, a skirt, and lips.
Like other figures of speech, personification
is used to explain one subject in terms of another.
In this case, Mora shows how a tornado is like a
woman. As the poem describes the tornado’s
progression, each stanza shows a different aspect
of the woman’s personality. In stanza 1 she is
quiet and brooding, in stanza two she sighs and
then lets loose with a powerful blast that upsets
everything around her. Stanza 3 shows her fright-
ening the women near her, and in stanza 4 the
word ‘‘uncoiling’’ suggests the tornado’s circular
movement and at the same time the unleashing of
pent-up emotion. In stanza 5, the woman is calm
once her outburst has ended. These descriptions
match levels or stages of expression, like a person
but used here to describe a tornado. Mora forces
readers to think about the ways in which one is
like the other.Shape Poem
A true shape poem, also referred to as acarmen
figuratum, is one in which the placement of the
words on the page resemble the physical shape of
the subject of the poem. The most commonly
discussed poem in this style is George Herbert’s
‘‘Easter Wings,’’ which has two stanzas that each
narrow then widen again, to create the image of
wings on the page.
Many readers may not see a tornado out-
lined on the page when they look at the way
‘‘Uncoiling’’ is printed. Still, they might notice
how each line is indented from the one before it
until the start of a new stanza, when the pattern
repeats again. This layout suggests a rotating or
twisting motion, something like the movement
of a tornado spinning and leaning as it movesLightning during a storm(Image copyright miamia, 2009. Used under license from Shutterstock.com)
Uncoiling