“Box Room: Form and Structure”

Form

“Box Room” is written as a dramatic monologue. This reflects the speaker’s isolated and introspective state and allows for the direct communication of their thoughts and feelings.
Due to its form, the poem offers a deep insight into the speaker’s mind, blurring the line between her thoughts and her spoken words.
The speaker uses direct address, talking straight to the ‘you’ of the poem, which could represent both her partner and her own fears and insecurities.

The poem is composed of two stanzas, each containing irregular lines. This uneven line structure highlights the unstable emotional state of the speaker.
The first stanza of “Box Room” sets the scene, looking at the external world and the lover’s childhood, while the second delves into the speaker’s internal world, revealing her anxieties and uncertainties.
A key feature of the poem’s structure is that the second stanza is significantly longer than the first, suggesting that the speaker’s internal world is more complex and unsettled.
Lochhead makes use of enjambment, where sentences flow over from one line to the next without punctuation, to create a stream-of-consciousness effect. This gives a sense of urgency and emotional intensity to the speaker’s thoughts.

While not a traditional sonnet, “Box Room” introduces a sonnet-like structure in the second stanza. Lochhead maybe using this form to highlight the inner turmoil of the speaker, who is trapped in a situation typically associated with love and romance.
Yet, the form is subverted and does not follow a perfect sonnet structure, suggesting the speaker’s distorted perspective and the reality of her situation. It’s a love story that does not quite fit the perfect mould, much like the form of the poem itself.