(3) Base Camp
For the most part, “The Author to Her Book” is a pretty pleasant, easy-going little cruise. However, sometimes Bradstreet's sentences have a funky kind of order that can be tricky. Just take a look at the poem’s first five lines again to see what we mean. Done? Yep, they’re kind of tortuous, aren’t they? On top of that, some of Bradstreet’s metaphors may be a little foreign—for example, all that stuff about stretching and making “even feet”? Yeah. Still, we’ll bottom line it for you: it’s not too bad, but you might need just a little help along the way.