Monday, February 28, 2011

Blog #5

In Fleur Adcock’s poem, The Video, the reader encounters great meaning within the small amount of words present in the poem. The little girl Ceri who watched her little sister Laura come into the world, watches the video in reverse and sees her little sister reenter her mother. This is significant in the poem because it reveals the jealousy and emotion that many older siblings have for new born children. Because a baby is a lot of work to take care of, usually the older siblings become second to the needs of the baby. The reader assumes that this is how Ceri feels. We are led to believe that the mother, who is now twice as busy with her newborn child, has pushed Ceri aside and now Ceri wishes her sister was back inside her mother. In Roethke’s poem, My Papa’s Waltz the speaker also deals with problems with his parents. In this poem the speaker is abused by his father. His father, who is seemingly an alcoholic, beats him day and night. The speaker uses the analogy of a waltz to describe the common situation that he and his father constantly find themselves in. I thought that the (abab) rhyme scheme was an interesting choice for this poem. It perfectly characterizes the battle between the boy and his father through the back and forth nature of the rhyme. It is as if each line is an attack by either the boy or his father; but in the end no one wins because they keep on waltzing. The last poem aslo deals with the problems between a father and his son. In Meinke’s poem (Untitled) the father is apologizing to his son, who he has scarred through his abuse over the years. His son who he describes as “frail forever” had been hurt by his father through his “ragings.” The speaker believes that he has killed his son’s confidence in life because he never told him how beautiful or loving he was. He writes this letter as an apology to his son for failing as a father. He wants to restore the beauty in his son that he believes that he effectively killed. In each of these poems, the speaker deals with a problem with his/her parents. These poems allow me to see how lucky I am to have the parents that I do. They love and care for me unconditionally. I know this because of their actions and also because they tell me every day. It is hard for me to relate to stories of such pain and suffering as the poems we have just read because I have never experienced anything like the events seen in the poems. I can only imagine what it feels like to question your parents love for you. Even though I read these stories, I can never truly relate to stories of distaste for parents and I am happy to admit this.

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