The Great Meadow

The Great Meadow is the place where Lennie drops a poem about Bailey and Joe secretly retrieves it. The incident links this setting to Lennie’s private writing and to Joe’s later discovery of the poems he has collected.

The Dropped Poem

Joe recalls watching Lennie write a note at The Great Meadow and seeing her drop it as she walked away. After she left, he found the paper caught in a fence. It was a poem about Bailey, not merely an abandoned scrap of writing.

The Poem’s Later Return

Joe says he had the poem in his pocket when he spoke with Lennie in a tree, intending to return it. Worried she would think it strange that he had picked it up, he kept it instead. When he later explains how he began finding and looking for her poems, the discovery at The Great Meadow becomes part of the account of how his collection began—and of Lennie’s realization that he had read and preserved her work.