Anne Stevenson Poetry

This poem takes on a unique subject, i.e., the intricate physical structure of the human body. It seems to explore the philosophical dualism of the body and mind. Stevenson's usual concerns in poetry, such as human life and nature, resonate with this poem. Moreover, her well-known keen observational skills and language inventiveness are evident in this poem as using medical language, it looks at the human body with all its internal intricacies, marveling at how it is created and constructed with such precision by the natural biological processes while contrasting these ages-old, accurate, and consistent processes with imprecise, ever-changing emotions.

The spirit is too blunt an instrument

to have made this baby.

Nothing so unskilful as human passions

could have managed the intricate

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The Spirit is too Blunt an Instrument

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