The tone of the poem is very light, and cheerful. Almost all of the words used in this poem are words usually associated with things that make people happy, like clowns, food and holidays. Words like ‘stars’ and ‘clownlike’ give the poem a happy feel as clowns are associated with happiness and stars are bright and calming. You get the feeling that although this child hasn’t been born yet, the mother already feels very proud and protective over them. It creates a very happy mood throughout, as there is not one negative thing mentioned, and no unpleasant imagery created.
A lot of imagery is created using lots a metaphors throughout the poem. In the first stanza, ‘wrapped up in yourself’ is describing how the baby is all curled up within the womb and ‘trawling your dark’ shows that it is dark inside of its mother where the baby is. The nine months that the baby would take to develop is described in ‘from the Fourth of July to All Fools’ Day’ which sounds a lot nicer than just saying nine months, and it sounds as though she is going to enjoy waiting these nine months before she can finally meet her child, ‘high-riser, my little loaf’ can show two things. The first, ‘high-riser’ can show that she has high expectations for the child’s future, but could also be describing how the baby is going to grow inside her, and the metaphor ‘my little loaf’ also links with the expression ‘bun in the oven’ meaning to be expecting a baby. In the second stanza, ‘our travelled prawn’ is there to describe all the places the unborn child has so far been, and the ‘prawn’ imagery may be referring to the appearance of a foetus in the early stages. Going back to the imagery of the child inside the womb, ‘snug as a bug and at home’ again is describing the baby as being wrapped up and kept warm and ‘at home’ as that is where the baby is and will remain until for the next nine months. The narrator then goes on to describe the child behaviour as ‘jumpy as a Mexican bean’ implying that the baby kicks and moves around inside her. At the very end of the poem, ‘a clean slate’ is used to mean that as soon as the child is born, it will be able to start a fresh life, with no impurities, and also ‘with your own face on’ could be to say that the child will have a personality of its own and be able to express itself in its own personal way.
The poem doesn’t really have any particular rhythm or rhyming scheme to it, but it still reads a very happy, easy way. There is alliteration used on ‘happiest on your hands’ which makes the baby sound like it is having a nice time, even though in reality its squashed into a confined space. The poem is very short with only eighteen lines in total, with both stanzas having 9 lines in each, and most of the lines have seven syllables in. The comma after the first word of the poem adds effect, and the consistent use of the commas throughout break the poem up as the narrator descries each different thing she likes.
