They Are What They Are

Poems always offer a sense of mystery. Poets intentionally leave details and deliberately use certain words, which have multiply denotations, but have certain connotations. The mysteriousness of poems have a certain allure, which captivates the readers' emotions or confuse their minds. Speaking of confusion, reading one of the assigned poems in my English 1302 class smacked my mind and sent it in a whirlpool of confusion.

"The Russian Greatcoat" by Theodore Deppe in 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day is about a man who recalls a past event where he throws his Russian greatcoat off of a bridge because someone, probably an ex-girlfriend said so. The part why he had to throw his great coat confused me. Why would the narrator throw his coat off of a bridge just because someone said so? Shouldn't he ask why he had to throw his coat? Normally, in that situation anyone would be confused. However, if the person is someone important in the narrator's life, maybe an ex-girlfriend or similar who he loved at one point, the narrator will be blinded by love so he did not need any explanations.

Also, considering how the narrator said he doesn't answer his wife's question about his Russian greatcoat, the person who ordered him to throw his coat away might be someone from an old relationship when he was younger. He even said that "just thinking of you were an act of betrayal" (14). His evading of the question and his remembering of the event makes me even more confused. Although this is just mere speculation, the narrator might have had an affair with someone. Maybe he decided to break off the affair and the woman he had an affair with was mad and ordered him to throw away his coat as a symbol of defiance and revenge. To keep her quiet, the narrator complied without asking for any explanations and threw away his coat. However, this happened years ago, and he probably wasn't married yet.

I guess the reason why I am confused by this poem is probably because the author uses a directed voice, and that threw me off. This directed voice is not bad, and it actually gives that mysterious vibe, which I mentioned in the beginning of this blog post. The author probably wrote this poem using a directed voice because it is a memory and memories become clouded as years pass by. Memories get influenced by other memories. Even the most vivid memories a person has might be slightly off. The author probably doesn't remember the person's name, but he remembers the event that had happened at that point in time. Maybe the author also wants to protect the identity of the person in his memory by not mentioning any names. There are many possibilities as to why the author wrote this poem the way he did, but it is what it is.

Poems might be confusing, but they are what they are. Authors deliberately write their works in certain ways to provoke a reaction from the readers. The reactions might not be always positive, but if there's a reaction, especially a negative one, then the author has accomplished his job. Poems are also mysterious, and it's because of the intentional omission of certain parts, and the usage of certain words. Albeit they may provoke negative responses from the audience, these things are what make a poem beautiful. They are what they are.

Works Cited

Deppe, Theodore. "The Russian Greatcoat." 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day. Ed. Billy Collins. New York: Random, 2005. 74. Print.

Written Thoughts

I like poetry. However, I like writing poetry than reading a piece. The flow of emotions in every single word, sentence, and stanza in a poem is like water, which can sometimes be a gentle stream or a cascading river. I have written multiple poems ever since I was young, and they usually were a poem of romantic nature.

Reading 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day, I found some very interesting poems. I am not used to reading poems since I don't read many of them, so I have many questions or inferences as to what I have understood in what I have read. Among the ones my English 1302 class was assigned to read, I have found one poem that sparked most of my attention was Leanne O'Sullivan's "Waiting for My Clothes."

The poem is about a girl in a waiting room of a hospital, probably a mental institute, whose belongings have been taken away from her, including her clothes and journal. She is waiting for them to be brought back to her.

I have become as curious as a cat about her situation. Why is the narrator in a hospital? Did something happen to her? It seems to me that the setting of the poem is a mental institute rather than a regular hospital, so if she is institutionalized, she might have had an emotional breakdown. Considering she said that as if taking her cure were part of a cure, she may have indeed had a breakdown and the doctors were examining the contents of her belongings. Or maybe it's just routine.

One of the most important details of this poem is her implied anxiousness about her journal being taken away. It's quite interesting for the narrator to say that her journal is her "word made flesh" (O'Sullivan 13). At first, I was confused on what she meant, and asked myself why she had said that. I realize what is usually written in a journal, and have understood what she meant by what the narrator said. Then comes another question. Why is there an emphasis on the journal? I am not entirely sure of the answer to this question. The most probably answer is that the narrator feels vulnerable as if she is a baby, who is being observed by doctors and nurses (16). Maybe she is anxious that the doctors may read her journal, which is understandable considering a person's journal is very private, and houses a person's most inner thoughts. It also quite interests me on how stanzas five through eight seems like a girl lost in fantasy. Maybe she is daydreaming about her journal being read and how she feels about this thought. Maybe she really is fantasizing about it for she said "Like my dreams, my clothes come out of their boxes" (32). I understand the clothes returning to her as an interruption to her fantasy and an invitation to the real world.

This poem is very curious indeed, and the deliberate omission of the reason of her stay in the hospital implies many things. Readers can maybe infer that the narrator may have suffered a breakdown, or just sick. Maybe the narrator is having a breakdown, and in order to cope up with this, she fantasizes about her journal being read, but she is interrupted and invited back to the real world by her clothes, which she was waiting for.

Works Cited

O'Sullivan, Leanne. "Waiting for My Clothes." 180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day. Ed. Billy Collins. New York: Random, 2005. 17. Print.

Emotions through Illustrations

Most memoirs are in the form of a novel. Every page is plastered with words, which describe emotions, thoughts, and actions. However, Stitches: A Memoir, by David Small, is a memoir in the form of a graphic novel. Instead of words, Small uses illustrations to stitch up words into pictures and tell a story about his unhappy childhood with unloving parents and abuse.

Pictures are worth a thousand words. Small's drawings are indeed worth a thousand words. His use of shadows, facial expressions, and presence of the eyes of the characters wonderfully show emotions, which might be harder to convey with words.

Shadows usually indicate gloom, sadness, anger, and suspense. The first time I read Stitches: A Memoir, I did not notice the shadows. However, the class discussions in my English 1302 class about the book opened my eyes and mind when we discussed about shadows. After reading the memoir a second time, I noticed that Small uses many shadows throughout the whole book. Looking at these shadows closely, I notice that the illustrations evoke certain moods or emotions, depending on what is on the panel.

One particular panel that spark my attention is the one in page 92 of the book. Using what I learned in Film Literature class about shadows, I analyze the mood of the panel. In this page, a window off-screen produces a shadow, which looks like prison bars. Considering what is happening in this part of the chapter, the reader can infer that the child David feels like he is a prisoner in his grandmother's house, and the shadow of the window sets this mood. In the same panel, a ceiling light illuminates the child David's grandmother, who is dragging him upstairs into a room. Even with the light illuminating the grandmother, there is a dark shadow, which fully engulfs David and his grandmother's face. It evokes suspense and fear even though their faces can't be seen.

Even with shadows looming in most of the illustrations, facial expressions can still be seen in most of them. Small's use of facial expressions shows the characters' emotions successfully without the aid of words.

In page 174, the readers can see the expressions of David and his mom in the panels. The first panel shows a complex of emotions. David's mom, Betty, seems annoyed and mad. In the second panel, David mirrors his mom's expression, and Small does an excellent job drawing and portraying the parallel emotions the two characters are experiencing. In page 175, we still see David's face. It seems he's unconvinced that his mom will actually get what he wants (mentioned in page 173). In the fourth panel, his eyebrows are raised and he seems to be looking down on his mom, because he doesn't believe Betty will actually get what he wants. Then, in the next two panels, we see Betty. She still seems angry because of the arch of her eyebrows, but her eyes can't be seen.

It is often said that the eyes are the windows to the soul. Many emotions can be seen through the eyes. A person can sometimes tell what another person is feeling through the eyes. However, in Small's memoir, Betty's eyes are usually "missing." Her eyes are mostly covered by the glasses she is wearing. This covers up whatever emotions she has pent up inside, which is fitting because there is a lack of communication in this family. The reader can infer that her emotions are repressed, and that her glasses are blocking the windows to her soul.

Shadows, facial expressions, and presence of the eyes can show a variety of emotions if used in certain ways. Small uses them wonderfully, and draws readers to his nightmare of a childhood with repressed emotions, and lack of communication.

Works Cited

Small, David. Stitches: A Memoir. New York; Norton 2009. Print