A Poem for the Season: “Summer Rain” by Amy Lowell

These are definitely the dog days of summer. In Florida where I live, the heat and humidity create a sense of somnolence and stillness. It’s too hot to move. When the inevitable afternoon storms break up these long days, I perk up for a moment, pause, and stand at the window, relishing the crash of lightning, the rumble of thunder, and the refreshing wash of rain on the lake behind our home. Summer is a special time, and to celebrate we wanted to share this special poem with you. Drawing on a bevy of stylistic techniques such as descriptive adjectives, onomatopoeia, five-senses words, alliteration, dual verbs, personification, simile, and metaphor, Amy Lowell beautifully describes a stormy, summery scene of a woman with her beloved in her brief poem, “Summer Rain.” We hope you enjoy reading it.

Summer Rain
By Amy Lowell

                All night our room was outer-walled with rain.
                Drops fell and flattened on the tin roof,
                And rang like little disks of metal.
                Ping!—Ping!—and there was not a pin-point of silence between them.
                The rain rattled and clashed,
                And the slats of the shutters danced and glittered.
                But to me the darkness was red-gold and crocus-colored
                With your brightness,
                And the words you whispered to me
                Sprang up and flamed—orange torches against the rain.
                Torches against the wall of cool, silver rain!

Amy Lowell was born in 1874 and wrote several books, including What’s O’Clock, for which she was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926. She embraced and emulated a style of poetry called Imagism. Imagism is a form of free verse focused on creating vivid pictures with very precise language. Now that you’ve read a sample of this type of poem, perhaps you would like to try your hand at creating one of your own!