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.