Part D
Consider the structure of the poem “Freeway 280.” Why do you think Cervantes chose to interchange long and short lines between the stanzas?

The poem “Freeway 280” is composed of the speaker’s individual thoughts that are broken into separate lines:

Maybe it's here

en los campos extraños de esta ciudad

where I'll find it, that part of me

mown under

like a corpse

or a loose seed.

Whenever Cervantes wants the reader to pause and think about a specific image or idea she uses enjambment and places a connected thought on a new line. She could have easily placed the phrases “mown under,” “like a corpse,” and “or a loose seed” in a single line, but the three lines represent different thoughts and create different images. Cervantes seems to alternate between short and long lines to create a rhythm in the poem, which gives the reader a chance to pause and imagine what Cervantes is describing. Perhaps the speaker feels her identity is disjointed, and the structure of the lines reflect this idea.

Explanation:

in our power to make a world happy - to teach mankind the art of being so - to a character hitherto unknown - and to have, as it were, a new creation intrusted to our hands, are honors that command reflection, and can neither be too highly estimated,