“Slowly”

“…the rabbit stiff, nose in, bits of litter stuck to its fur / its head clenched in the side / jaws of the snake, the snake / sucking it down its long throat” (Masini 3-6). After reading this quote from Donna Masini’s poem “Slowly” it brought chills to my entire body. This poem was so disturbing, confusing and completely bothering to me because of all the details that she gives. Maybe also because my BIGGEST phobia is snakes and this poem is about a snake eating a rabbit.

This poem was quite confusing to me; I couldn’t really fill in the puzzle pieces and understand it too well. What I did understand and get from the first read of this poem was that the author is talking about how she remembers going on a field trip to the zoo with her class and watching a rabbit being devoured by a snake. She gives every detail to how the rabbit is being eaten by the snake, “I didn’t know why / the snake didn’t choke, the rabbit never / moved, how the jaws kept opening / wider, sucking it down...” (19-22).

The fact that in the poem she states how her teacher told her and the rest of the girls to move along, to view another animal but couldn’t because they were mesmerized from what they were seeing. “(all the girls, groaning, shrieking / but weren’t we amazed, fascinated, / saying we couldn’t look, but looking weren’t we / imagining – what were we imagining?). / Mrs. Peterson urged us to move on girls, but we couldn’t move” (11-17). This is where questions started boiling in my head. Why was the author thinking they were imagining it? Why was she asking what they were imagining if they were not imagining it. The girls were there in person, watching the snake eat the rabbit. Did the author maybe ask this because they were so fascinated at the most disturbing and gross action ever that they could have been imaging something else to keep them interested in watching? As if they had set their minds to imagine something other than that to stay and look and watch it continue swallowing it. Also, what caught my attention was how the author italicized “move on girls”. Was she mimicking her teacher, Mrs. Peterson? Reading that line again, maybe the author was mimicking her. But what really threw me over board with confusion and I did not understand was the last couple of lines in her poem, “..just so / I am taking this in, slowly, / taking it into my body: / this grief. How slow / the body is to realize. / You are never coming back” (22-27). Why is she saying “I,” referring to her? Why did she say taking it in her body when it is the snake that is. How she goes from the snake to her, then to her being the snake? So many questions to what I didn’t understand the first time I read this poem.

Now looking back at this poem and analyzing it better, the author is realizing how slow it is to know one day one is never coming back. From rereading it several times, I took and I think someone close to the author, a family member or even a friend of hers may have passed away and she is saying it is hard to take it in, to take in that that person is never coming back. One slowly takes it in, taking the pain and grief into their mind, heart and body that they are gone. By grief I mean to know that person is in a better place but yet not wanting to believe, slowly taking it in that it is a bye. Using the snake eating the rabbit as a perfect example but yet very disturbing of how slow it is to take in a situation like that.

Very Similar, Yet Very Different

Billy Collins “180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day” has such a variety of poems that address many different subjects and themes. There are so many poems that have similar or the same themes/subjects that involve: Romance/love, betrayal, death, mortality, food, art and also parent-child relationships. Two poems to which I thought were similar because of the fact they are both over parent-child relationships, were “The Clasp” by Sharon Olds and “What I Do” by Douglas Goetsch. These two poems had a very similar theme/subject as one another but yet very different to one. These to poems may both be pertaining to a parent-child relationship but they both have very distinct things and feelings going on.

 In Sharon Olds, “The Clasp” I at first took from this poem was that she was just getting her daughter in trouble for trying to push her younger brother over on his face. She states how she punished her and how she felt about doing it, “I grabbed her to keep her from shoving him over on his face, again, and when I had her wrist in my grasp I compressed it, fiercely, for almost a second, to make an impression on her, to hurt her, our beloved firstborn, I even nearly savored the stinging sensation of the squeezing…” (Olds 3-8). The quote clearly explains how the author punished her daughter, by grabbing her wrist and squeezing it until it hurt her. She also mentions in the quote how she “nearly savored the stinging sensation,” meaning she basically liked hurting her, not what a mother would ever say about hurting/punishing their child. She uses the word “again” as if it wasn’t the first time her daughter tries to do this or perhaps it isn’t the first time she tries to. “Grab, crush, crush, crush, release – and at the first extra force, she swung her head” (12-14). Every time the poet said “crush” meant how much harder she would tighten her grasp around her daughters wrist until it hurt her and it caught her attention making her have a quick reaction to it. She states how deeply impacted her daughter was in shock to believe her mother would ever grab and hurt her like this, basically questioning what kind of love or what/why she was doing this to her, opening her eyes and making her realize what she did was wrong. After reading this poem over again several times, I came to the conclusion that the daughter may have been jealous of her little brother, trying to kill him perhaps or hurt him by rolling him over onto his face, and how her mother feels some sort of pleasure of hurting her, and why and what sort of love is this that she is hurting her. In this poem, the mothers clasp interprets the anger, irritated, pleasurable fact of hurting and squeezing her daughters’ wrist. It is kind of dark, hurtful, a bit of jealousy, love, lesson-learned poem.

“What I Do,” by Douglas Goetschs poem is quiet confusing at first and still is quite a bit. The poem is about the author and his father’s relationship, parent-child relationship, specifically father-son relationship. “Maybe he felt powerful, or just responsible, signing those checks, sitting hours at his desk, slumped, his big back to me and the rest of the house” (Goetsch 11-15).  The author states this to show how his father was so emerged into his work, paying bills and what not that he does not put/make any time to spend with him nor the rest of his family. His father only had him bring him coffee while getting burned, cleaning out his ashtray and shine his shoes (11-20). From what I understood from the poem was that the author and his father were distant from each other, they had no communication nor showed love for each other whatsoever. The author states how he put his hand into his father’s shoe to shine them, he made a fist and put it in, and that’s not how one usually puts their hand in a shoe. I interpreted that statement as he was angry and upset at his father. He states how now reaching his father’s age he now understands him, and how he sees the exact same image of his father as he looks into the mirror. Realizing he is becoming or slowly becoming his father and afraid to be like him.

“The Clasp” and “What I Do” are alike but yet very different from one another. One is in a male voice and the other in a female. Each one expressing what type of parent-child relation they have and what is happening. “What I Do” approaches his theme by remembering how his relationship with his father was and how he is slowly turning into his father, afraid of that transformation? On the other hand, “The Clasp” shows how she loves her daughter but yet liked the sensation of hurting her while punishing her for doing something that was wrong. They both interpret their own meaning of the type of relationship they have with their child or parent, making them similar but yet extremely different.

"Ever After" by Joyce Sutphen

“Ever After” by Joyce Sutphen had me questioning her poem the entire time. It had me confused, emotional, sad, and heartbroken in the beginning and just wondering what was going on. This poem aroused curiosity and also intrigued me to write about it was of the fact that her poem is so depressing in the beginning and then in the end it is a happily ever after moment. It had me thinking, did they break up or did they get married? I also had me thinking as if it was some kind of form of princess fairy tale story/poem.

In her poem she states repeatedly, “what am I to you now..” which personally had me thinking her and perhaps a boyfriend went their different ways. As I continue reading this poem, in every stanza she states her and her boyfriend or ex-boyfriend as two different people, not as us or we, but you and me. And what also had me thinking this idea of them separating was after reading stanza four which states, “Unrelated persons except for that ex- that goes in front of the words.” This stanza using the term “EX” and how the author implies it and states it in her sentence/stanza gave me a confirmation of them splitting but then once again my thought of the meaning of this poem completely changed as I continued.

As I thought I had figured out what was happening in this poem, that thought was changed once more. Continuing my reading the author states the words husband, wife, our hands clasped, and tall white cake, throwing me off into a whole different train of thought. I had no idea what was going on in this poem, until it hit me. Perhaps the author was implying her and her boyfriend as two different people in the beginning to show readers how that “me” and “you” are joining together, giving each other a whole different title to one another, husband and wife. “Our hands clasped” referring to them cutting that “tall white cake” implies that this couple just married and are cutting their cake to share and give out to those who want a piece.

What came to my conclusion is that maybe the author in the beginning of the poem was asking all those questions of who are they to each other and what is she to him, questioning him basically asking him if she still as important as she was before or am I more? What are they to each other, husband and wife, two separate individuals? Her starting out her poem this way confusing the readers but then coming to an ending of them having that husband-wife title, cutting their cake and having the ever after as one.

Stitches

From page one; Stitches had me on my feet wanting to read more and more. David's intense lifetime story all put into these graphic drawings/photos. Each photo portraying their own emotions and definition; anger, confusion, loneliness, sadness and many more. That is what I loved about this book, all the deep emotional graphics.

In this novel, David does not just put his emotions through text but through his graphics also. He uses more graphics than actual text in the book. The characters facials, eyes, and actions all demonstrate a different type of emotion. They portray what and how they feel. Many times throughout the book he focuses/zooms in on the characters eyes and facial expressions. The photos giving and showing many different emotions going on. In the many graphics that focus on the characters eyes, it shows the glossiness in them in which to many it could have various definitions of emotions. Their facials give the reader that sense of intensity because of the fact they are so out there that it seems the character itself is angry with the reader. Every picture gives out that sense of emotion being felt.

The structure he uses throughout the book of how he can have two or three text in one page and then have about ten pages full of graphics just portraying everything going on. Not only did all these graphics show emotion but they also described each and every character. He does not use long detailed sentences to describe and explain their physical appearance, mood and personality, he uses very detailed graphics. These graphics helping the reader comprehend what is going on in the book.

David uses graphics to portray his life, everything he went through and every emotion he felt all into graphics. His graphics told his story, they gave his book life. A roller coaster full of emotions and mystery. The graphics were meant to tell the story in a deeper more intense and visual way. Without these graphics there would not be a story of a young boy who his dad gave him cancer, his grandmother being a complete lunatic and his mother neglecting him and mistreating him to find out all her mysterious secrets she kept. Without these graphics it would be extremely difficult to understand and feel what David went through. Pictures are worth a million words.