The two poems I chose were “A
Monoryhme for the Shower” and “Hate Poem”. The reason that I decided to pick
these poems is because they stood out to me to be detailed. They also
completely contrast each other. The similarity I found between the two is obsession.
The detail in both poems was either intense or awkward which gave the idea of
being obsessed of a particular feeling or subject.
The first poem, “A Monoryhme for
the Shower”, by Dick Davis is an awkward obsession to me. It talks about a
women taking a shower and describes the movement of her showering. It starts
from the beginning saying,
“Lifting her arms to soap her hair
Her pretty breasts respond-and there
The movement of that buoyant pair
Is like a spell to make me swear” (Line 1-4).
The start of the poem gives you a sense of the subject and
who is who. We have the narrator who the one watching the woman taking a
shower. The subject is the woman taking a shower and a man in love with her
especially with her body. The continuing lines prove to me to be obsession
because he tells how he doesn’t even know the woman. He says that he wouldn’t
dare to approach her. This seemed to be a characteristic of a stalker which led
me to obsession. Then the next stanza goes into more of his feelings towards
her, and the feelings of her toward him. He says,
“That constitute the life we share-
Slip from her beautiful and bare
Bright body as, made half aware” (Line 11-13).
These lines describe his actual emotional feelings toward
her. He describes them as having things in common aside from how beautiful she
may be, and that he isn’t aware half the time with her. Then the poem brings
the woman in the picture. As he has this blank stare looking straight at her,
she looks back and smiles at him as if she has been knowing him for a while. I
guess some questions to be asked is to know how their relationship really is
besides through him watching her shower. What does he mean by the twenty-odd
years he mentions? Answers to these questions can help a better description connection
of their relationship and of the poem.
The second poem, “Hate Poem”, by
Julie Sheehan appeared to be more in an intense and in deep obsession. The
obsession you can guess from the title it relates with hatred. The poem uses
random objects to describe the deep emotion of hatred towards this person. This
gave a sense of obsession considering how she used so many different examples.
She kept nonstop talking of the matter. She talks of things she does as holding
a pencil or the way she moves her wrist hating this person. At the end of the
poem we conclude that she is talking of a man because she describes her head
under his arm. When she says,
“The little blue-green speck of sock lint I’m trying to dig
from
under my
third toenail, left foot hates you” (line 8).
The detail and specifications that she talks about in this
line alone show her deep feelings for the hatred for him. The way she wrote a poem
about her hatred towards him and in such detail shows signs of obsession.
Both the poems had obsession but
one with more love than the other. One showed obsession through the good things
of the woman in the shower, her beauty. The other showed obsession through
great details to show the amount of hatred that she can’t get over, so obsesses
over.
I had read these poems and I didnt see the "Hate Poem" to have a sense of obsession, but after reading your blog and going back and reading the poem again,I can see how your correct. I like how you where able to distinguish each poem as one being a love and lust obsession and the other being hatred of how in love she is she hates it.
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