What effect does Carolyn Kizer's use of participles in stanzas 1-4 have in her poem, "Night Sounds?"

In Carolyn Kizer's poem, "Night Sounds," the author
predominately used "present participles," and it is in the label of the part of speech
that we find part of our answer. This kind of participle" has an "-ing" ending which
makes the poem sound as if it is taking place right at the moment that we read the
poem—it sounds as if it is occurring right now. This effect gives the reader a sense of
the freshness of the images shared by the author—the immediacy, in seeing it in the
present moment.

Additionally, this technique will not allow
the reader to gain any sense of ease in believing that the emotions expressed are in the
past, but that they are occurring and affecting the speaker as she
speaks: now as we read. We find no relief: the expressions shared are vivid and alive,
and this further impresses the reader that the pain the speaker expresses is not dimmed
and does not fade away. Each time the poem is read, it is almost as if the emotional
response of the speaker is endless, like habitual suffering: and perhaps this is what it
feels like to the speaker—that her misery and loneliness continue without
respite.

We also find that in almost every use of a
participle, the "message" being shared is "heavy-handed" or somehow infers that
something is just slightly "off." For example:

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Living alone now...A child weeping at
nightmares..While coaxing...Always withholding something...Trying not to disturb
me...feigning sleep.

What
impresses me as a reader with Kizer's choice of words is that she not only gives the
sense of living in the present moment, but also that the pain does not stop for the
speaker, but continues on...and on.