-This poem features images taken from the Canadian landscape.

            

             "as crisp and as white as our snow".

             " strong as a jack pine" .

             "young as a trillium" .

             "the spirit of the mountains" .

             "the spirit of the prairie" .

             "The North, as a deed, and forever".

             - He uses raw materials that seem to come from experience .

             - His images are sharp, very clearly defined. His images are so clear and straightforward that they can be interpreted as almost anything. A good explanation of this is in the poem "Poetry for Intellectuals" when the author says as follows: .

             If you say in a poem "the grass is green",.

             They all ask, "What did you mean?".

             If you say in a poem "grass is red", .

             They understand what you said.

             Smith"s work is like saying the grass is green, a statement so simple and clear it seems almost too easy to analyze. .

             - Smith is specific about the landscape he describes i.e. The Canadian North as "lonley, unbuyable, dear" and the background to which he sets this is purposely undefined and fuzzy. This is akin to a painter when the vocal point of the painting is very detailed while the background is fuzzy and blurred. .

             - He is very repetitive, using "as" 22 times. He also describes the landscape over and over again. One could interpret this repetitive nature to represent raindrops falling .

             - He is very tentative in his selection of images. Almost as if he doesn"t seem to be too sure of himself. He claims he "would take" he uses "as" a lot instead of just stating the fact, " As clear and as cold" instead of "clear and cold" .

             This almost seems to imply that Smith is carefully avoiding using words whose symbolism may be easily misinterpreted. He seems to want the reader to be sure of what he is saying. The author is trying to clarify his work.

             .

             ------------------------------------------------------------------------.