How to Triumph Like a Girl Literary Elements

First-person female speaker, closely identifiable with the poet

Free verse, one stanza, eighteen lines of no consistent meter or rhyme

The title, "How to Triumph Like a Girl," is a simile that establishes the poem's central theme of winning as a feminine act
Line 16, "huge beating genius machine" is a metaphor for a heart

Line 1, alliteration of /l/, "like the lady"
Line 8, assonance of short /i/, "if this big"
Line 12, alliteration of /h/, "horse heart"
Line 16, assonance of /ee/, "beating genius machine"
Line 17, homophones of "no" and "knows"

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Contemporary poetry

Among female racehorses

Conversational, conspiratorial and inspiring

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The speaker must assert the power of her female body against the unstated but implied social constraints placed on women

The two "Don't you" questions in lines 14-15 signal the poem's turn into its final climax, which truly builds right up until the last line with the resounding affirmation "it's going to come in first."

Line 6, "after winning" foreshadows the image of "[coming] in first" that ends the poem
The direct second-person address of "Ears up, girls" foreshadows the turn to addressing the reader that comes in line 14 ("Don't you")

Lines 3-4 use understatement to explore how easy mares make winning look: it seems no harder than taking a nap or eating grass, even though we can assume those use a lot less skill and energy on the horses' part
Lines 7-8, "I like / that they're ladies" comes across as a trivial confession but leads into the expansive power, awe, and wildness that the horses represent to the speaker

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Lines 10-11, the "delicate skin of my body" uses synecdoche in which the skin stands in for the whole of the body
Line 12 uses synecdoche in which the horse's heart symbolizes the power and ability of the entire horse

Lines 5-6, the horses are attributed with swagger and pride, emphasizing their human-like emotions
Lines 17-18 personify the speaker's heart by saying that the heart knows it will come in first

Lines 12-13, the image of "an 8-pound female horse heart, / giant with power" is hyperbolic in the context of the human body: a normal human heart weighs between 8-15 ounces, about one-tenth of eight pounds. To imagine this heart inside herself, and to call it "giant," the speaker makes herself seem larger than life
Line 17, "that thinks, no, it knows": no one truly knows the outcome of their life, but it is a brash and hyperbolic confidence to ascribe this level of certainty to the speaker's heart

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