Review of "The Whole World Is Gone" by Jennifer Grotz

"The Whole World Is Gone" by Jennifer Grotz was offered by Poets.org's Poem-A-Day on February 4, 2014.  A link to the poem, including the poet's notes, may be found here:

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23852?utm_source=PAD%3A+The+Whole+World+Is+Gone+by+Jennifer+Grotz&utm_campaign=poemaday_020414&utm_medium=email

Jennifer Grotz, MA, MFA, PhD (b. 1971) teaches creative writing at the University of Rochester and the Warren Wilson College MFA Program.  She also serves as the Assistant Director of the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference.  She has two published collections of poetry to her name.  Additional biographical information may be found here:  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/jennifer-grotz.

The poem is presented in seventeen lines of ragged free verse.  The first several lines appear to contain four irregular feet per line, but then the rhythm itself becomes irregular.

The first eleven lines vividly describe the sensation, or lack thereof, that one perceives when driving at night through an unlit countryside.  The remaining lines evoke a lover and speak to the residual sensual feelings that exist in his absence, using the prior lines as metaphor.  The final line reveals that this is a sensation that the speaker, presumably the poet, enjoys and even seeks.