Joy Harjo

Joy Harjo’s “Mourning Song” is a poem about a person who is enduring loneliness and grief, as indicated in the following line: “Oh grief rattling around in the bowl of my skeleton.” The narrator’s grief is so immense that it has found the very place that supports her; that holds her up and allows her to move. Without her skeleton, she couldn’t be anything, and now it is stricken with such grief. Also, the fact that it is early evening means that the narrator is finally allowed to show her anguish. The night is significant because it is completely dark and no one can see her pain during the night. The line, “I need to mourn with the night” is significant because night-time doesn’t last forever. As soon as the sun begins to rise, everything is bright once again, and just as the moon sets, her grief will set as well.

Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Brook’s “A Song in the Front Yard” is a poem in which danger is the central theme. “The front yard” is symbolic of a place of safety, while “the back yard” refers to a life of danger. The narrator states that she has always lived in the front yard and appears to have grown bored with the front yard and wishes to visit the back yard.

                                “I’ve stayed in the front yard all my life

                                  I want to peek at the back

                                  Where it’s rough and untended and hungry and weed grows.

                                  A girl gets sick of a rose.” (Lines 1-4)

The narrator even disregards her mother’s sneers at the “back yard” and the “wonderful things” (line 10) that take place there. The narrator seems to hold the mentality that the grass is greener in the back yard.  “Sadie and Maud” is another work of Brooks, and I found this poem quite amusing. The primary theme contained in this poem is that wealth and education is  always the key to success. Muad attends college; Sadie does not, thus “scrapping” by life: “Sadie scraped life/ With a fine toothed comb./ She didn’t leave a tangle in/ Her comb found every strand.” (2-4). Sadie appears to have a hard life. Everything that could go wrong seems to happen in her life, but Sadie doesn’t let it get her down. She still lives her life, and all the while smiling. Sadie then has two children out of wedlock, and the reader can conclude that the father was not in the picture: “Sadie bore two babies/ Under her maiden name” (10-11). Her parents were ashamed of the circumstances which their grandchildren were born under, but it not matter to Sadie; she was happy.  And when Sadie passed away, her children were with her and although she had nothing to pass down except her fine-toothed comb (which could also be interpreted as her good nature), she was fortunate enough to be surrounded by loved ones. Maud, who went to college and was well-educated, is all alone.

Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” is a poem about her father about how her father negatively impacted her life. The poem can also be interpreted as a declaration of independence from the clutches of her controlling father after he has passed away. Plath uses imagery in her poem, which makes it all the more effective. Such examples include the shoe, which Plath uses to describe her relationship with her father: “You do not do, you do not do/ Any more, black shoe/ In which I have lived like a foot/” (1-3). Plath describes herself as a foot, living her life covered by a black object. Also, Plath could be referring to “walking around on eggshells” with her father, as if she had to watch her every step. In the second stanza Plath goes on to describe her father using imagery once again.  Lines 7-10 illustrate him and also tell of how he died: “You died before I had time--/ Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,/ Ghastly statue with one grey toe/” (7-10). Plath’s father died of complications from gangrene, and she is describing this by telling of the “ghastly statue with one grey toe. Also, he was a God-fearing man and the reader can even be lead to acknowledge that he had a god-like mentality.