Classic and Contemporary Poetry
GOOD-BYE DOROTHY GAYLE: ST. CLOUD, MINNESOTA, by KAREN SWENSON Poet's Biography First Line: A small square with elms Last Line: "but she does. She has to." Subject(s): Memory; Mothers & Daughters | ||||||||
... it is the recognition that human life cannot, after all, be subsumed within nature's annual course which, along with that affirmation of nature's sympathy for man, defines the pastoral elegist's vision of death. Ellen Z. Lambert, Placing Sorrow A small square with elms trying to reduce the sky to a manageable portion, a bandstand baroque in its wooden Victorian swags. The children are muted on swings; couples stroll in each other's arms; a man, belly billowing over his belt, drinks his beer to Sousa's beat; a woman next to him knits in time. "I told you," says a boy beside the swings in the growing darkness swooped by bats, "we're stronger than them 'cause girls have to have babies." She taught me to curl a dandelion by splitting the stem and pushing my tongue against the bitter fork until green ringlets came in my spit. Her face like a withered viburnum against the pillow - "Why are men so mean? That young woman next door works all day and then she cooks and cleans." "She doesn't have to, Mother." "But she does. She has to." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FAWN BEFORE DOW SEASON by JOAN LARKIN ONE FOR ALL NEWBORNS by THYLIAS MOSS FIRST THANKSGIVING by SHARON OLDS HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR by SHARON OLDS CHANEL NO. 5 by LAURE-ANNE BOSSELAAR THE GLASS ESSAY by ANNE CARSON |
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