Knoxville, Tennessee

It is commonly understood that summer is the warmest season of the year, so it is not surprising when Giovanni’s speaker mentions, near the close of the poem, that one of the reasons she likes summer best is because she can “[…] be warm / all the time” (Lines 21-22). Most people, young and old, prefer the physical sensation of being warm versus being too hot or too cold. Like having enough food, being warm symbolizes safety; it’s the ideal temperature for humans to thrive.

But, as earlier noted, Giovanni chose not to end the poem on this simple, contented sensation. Instead, she continues the thought about being warm in the summer as often occurring and “not only when you go to bed / and sleep” (Lines 23-24). The image of a child, warm and safe in bed, is comforting. Still, these final two lines casually disrupt the tone of Giovanni’s poem by indicating that the speaker is not always warm and thereby not always safe or content. There is a slight, clever indication of unrest or even fear here. The fact that the poem centers on the seasons that the speaker like best allows the reader to understand that there are other things she does not like. Though such things are not listed here, it can be safely reasoned that the intentional absence of certain elements from an otherwise upbeat poem hints at their existence without overtly listing them.