On Alice Fulton

Alice Fulton's poems "The Fractal Lanes" is very interesting to me. For one, the diction she chooses are rhythmic. She makes use of alliteration to stick a point to the reader's mind. For example, in the poem, she writes, "Can it be our comfort's / Derived from our dumbness?" Not only does this line please our ears and eyes, but it pleases our mind as well. It makes us think. Similarly, her line, "the ground we glide on then reside in holds more oxygen than the air" has a good rhythm too. The 'g' in both ground and glide, along with the beat of 'glide on then reside in' make us happy to read the line, while the idea of the ground holding more oxygen than the air makes us think. Reading her work makes me remember how important syntax and diction is, not for the sake of the sound alone, but for the purpose of enhancing meaning, which is the most important part of any poem.