Marks" by Linda Pastan is a lyric poem. It is a rather short poem with one speaker throughout. The speaker in the poem expresses her many throughts and feelings regarding her duties as a wife and mother. This poem uses line breaks and commas to interrupt the sentences throughout the poem. These commas and line breaks place an emphasis on key parts of the poem since the reader automatically pauses upon reaching a comma or end of line. This emphasis creates a more dramatic, intense effect.