The Centaur: Summary and Questions
“The Centaur” is one of the most popular and anthologized poems by May Swenson. In the poem, the poet re-creates the joy of riding a stick horse through the summer of a small town. We find ourselves, with her, straddling “a long limber horse with . . . a few leaves for a tail,” and running through the beautiful dust along the course of the old canal. As her form shifts from child to horse and back, we know exactly what she feels like.
