Research Paper on:
Poetic Analysis of 'Hazel Tells LaVerne' by Kathryn Howd Machan

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and usually featuring romantic themes in pastoral settings. However, with the dawn of the twentieth century, urban areas began changing both Americas physical and literary landscape. People in  the inner cities were often categorized by ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Within the tightly-knit urban circles of the impoverished African-American "ghetto" communities, there emerged distinctive groups that had their  own unique language and perceptions based on life experiences which differed from the upper- and middle-class White establishment. Poetry has relocated from the majestic, idealized countryside, and taken up  residence in the gritty realism of urban America. It is important for a student writing about modern poetry to consider that in a world where many lower-income people are cleaning  toilets to make a buck, flowery words like "How do I love thee, let me count the ways" have no meaning. The poetry which speaks most eloquently to contemporary  readers is that with which they can relate, written in a language they can easily understand. Feminist poet and Ithaca College professor Kathryn Howd Machan captured the essence of  the American urban experience, and considered how fantasy had no place in a world in which every day was a struggle to make ends meet. Her poem, "Hazel Tells  LaVerne," is a monologue of cleaning woman, who tells her friend of a strange encounter she had while performing her nightly toilet-cleaning ritual. In a language which captures the  conversational, if semi-literate style of the uneducated working class, Machan paints a realistic portrait of contemporary urban society. There is no formal style followed in terms of capitalization and  punctuation, and no structured rhyme scheme or metered prose. Hazel begins her tale by telling LaVerne, "last night / im cleanin out my / howard johnsons ladies room /