two poems

ask students which poem looks harder to read

can they give a reason for their view?

what could be looked at to find out which is harder to read?
(objective, not subjective - this is maths...)

it is quite a lot of work to analyse these poems in terms of their average word length
but if you do the (mean) averages are very nearly the same

why is this the case when the second poem looks quite a lot harder to read?

what other measure could usefully be used to compare the two poems?

[a measure of spread as well as an average]