I Love, I Hate, & I Obsess

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.  

Wedding, Ring, & a Poem

In the poem by Lynne McMahon titled, “Wedding Ring”, brought more attention to me because of the different things it includes. This poem has italicized words, parenthesis, comparisons, questions, dashes, and words I haven’t seen before. Lynne McMahon kept her poem interesting from the first line to the last. She talks about what is exactly mentioned in the title. She talks about a wedding ring, the meaning of the ring in her perspective and what happened when she encountered the ring herself.

Lynne McMahon starts a comparison in the first stanza so it automatically grabs your attention. She talks of,

 “silver hands clasping a rounded heart,

an apple,

 I mistakenly thought,

topped by a crown” (Line 4-6).

When she talks about silver hands clasping she is referring to the color of the rings. Then she says the silver hands are clasping a rounded heart that describes how the rings are something that represent soothing so strong to hold a heart or love feeling. The next lines bring up an apple and crown. She says that she misread the heart and ring to an apple with a crown. This starts to bring up questions about if she knows what the representation of a wedding ring is and what it really means involving love. Since she mistakenly thought the heart and ring to be an apple with a crown it gives the reader a sense of that she is new to love.

The second stanza has to be the most difficult for me while reading the poem. It includes the words pomme, regnant, etymologies, and also the word wring. Even after I looked up what each word meant the stanza still had me curious and confused. She mentions of the word pomme being French which gave the poem interest and curiosity which made the reader want to look deeper into the poem.

The third stanza is longer than the rest and it is also the last so there is one full meaning going on. She mentions songs that make her think of memories that she describes as “sent bowling down the street”. When she says this phrase it means that she thinks of everything that has happened in the past. The memories pop back in her head. The memories aren’t only good memories though because she continues on of sudden wind and smoky trees with rain. The wind and trees making all the racket displays how there were problems, issues, and the kind of speed bumps you get in relationships. Then she says that they remind her of home. This is when the readers begin to question … Is it good to have fights and arguments? So are problems a good thing?

Lynne McMahon writes that yes maybe the sight of marriage or being with someone can be misread. That once with someone you will have your issues or problems or both but it makes up what a marriage is. When you put that wedding ring on that’s your marriage that you don’t let go and you commit to it just as she ends with.

“I never take it off” (line 31).

“Wedding Ring”

By: Lynne McMohan

Life to Dreams

In the book Stiches: A Memoir everything awkward and freaky grabs your attention. Throughout the whole book you are just stuck to it because of how weird but amazingly written it is. The one thing that always will get my mind spinning around is the dreams. The main character, David, has dreams in every tough moment he may just feel like running away. You can tell that he begins to distance himself more from everyone because his dreams start occurring more often than usual. In the beginning reading of the book there was only one dream. Then as the sections went on, it became to three dreams in one section. The character had more things happening in his everyday life that it gave his brain a trigger to dream away to its own place.

In the book the first official dream David has is when his mother sends him to bed with nothing. On page 45 he says, “sent to bed with no supper, I dreamed that night of the little man in the jar” (Small). The illustration shows him screaming going into some sort of dark black hole with the little man reaching for his hand. There are also some strange objects floating down with him. A safety pin, beads, a key, and a small toy cowboy are all included in the black hole. Some of these objects were mentioned earlier in the book which brings me back to how he dreams of things that were mentioned recently or that may mean something to him. One thing that I still haven’t connected yet is the key, so I think it might show up later. I think it’s one of those objects that give off a foreshadowing sense.

One of his other dreams that popped out to me is the one on page 196-200. This dream happens after David has his surgery and just had removed the bandage. A few moments before walking to his room he slams the door on his mom. It showed the first revolt on his mother. He fought back and slammed it as she always would to other doors. Once he gets to bed he lays then you see him grip the sheets and eyes scrunched in like he was scared. The dream was of a bat out in the cold shivering out alone. Then it starts raining and lightning comes striking. The bat starts to cry and yells, “MAMA!” (Small). If you thought the bat was as weird as it could get just wait. An umbrella appears in the picture and he calls that mama. He was happy and full of energy but then once he opens it the umbrella is destroyed. When I first saw this I noticed what it may have been comparing to. I think the bat represents David and the umbrella represents his mother. The whole dream represents their relationship with each other. It describes how he cries out for his mom and desperately needs her especially with him seeing his scar for the first time. The turning point is that his mom never really is there for him and seems as she doesn’t care. She becomes a kind of disappointment to him like the umbrella does for the bat.

These were two of the dreams that appeared more interesting of them all because of the curiosity and odd elements. When an author has a reader curious then he has the reader hooked in the book. David Small does that with these dream sequences. I think he does an awesome job at it. It has me hooked and I don’t really like books or get hooked easily. I am now just anxious to find out about what the key might mean and how the mother son relationship turns out.

… off to read …

Growing at Seven Climbing

When I was seven years old I had a habit or so called hobby of climbing trees. I think every kid at one point did. I climbed trees everyday. It started off as once a week to something everyday after school for as long until the sun went down. Climbing trees as a little girl was so much fun for me. I wasn't the type of girl that sat inside playing with jewelry or dolls. When you first think of anyone climbing a tree you would think they just go up the tree then just come right back down, but for me that wasn't the case. When I climbed a tree it was my way of escaping the world and going into my own. It was a challenge each day getting to the top. A couple of times I may have scraped myself on branches or edges but I love a challenge. I have five other siblings plus my parents and I, that is eight people. Since I had so many people in one house it felt awesome to have my own escape.
When I reached the top of each tree I carved in a different design each time. I carved swirls, shapes, stick figures, stars, hearts, and each time it was something different that represented something about my day. One day I had a fight at school with another girl. It was nothing huge or nothing of no blood. The fight started when the girl threw a paper ball at me during art, so what did I do? I threw it back at her. Little did I know then how my aim was so well. When I threw it back it went right at her face. I guess I was strong too because she said it hurt bad, but she looked fine. I think the only reason she said that is because the teacher saw the whole thing. We were both put into time out which was in separate corners on bean bag chairs. What happen that day was something I never expected. Later on that day, I climbed the tree and carved a stormy cloud with a lightning bolt. Then two girls on each side of it.
I had little things fro each day and I carved them on the same tree. I loved the idea of being able to have a whole life story of carvings. It was something I enjoyed and it was for me. By the time I turned nine I had every branch filled with carvings. There was not one stop empty. One day I showed my dad and he liked it a lot. I have to admit I am Daddy's little girl and I know that. He watched over me and always made sure I wasn't getting pushed around my other siblings. That day I showed him he was happy I had something I can do for me and somewhere I can be. He built a swing on that tree painted green and a carving of my name. He also got a 14 foot bamboo stick tied it straight up to the tree. I got to climb the bamboo stick to go on my tree everyday. I was scared at first because I never knew how strong it was but I got the hang of it. With all my workout climbing the stick, I knew just in case I had to throw another paper ball it would for sure hurt, so I know no faking would be going on.
As a kid that tree and all the other trees I got to climb, made each day an adventure. It was freedom.

Nerves, Cookies, & New Life: A Childhood Memory

I remember walking into the living room with my sisters and bother siting around the Tv. We were all together watching a movie while we waited for our parents to come home from work. While we siting the front door sung open and we all jumped. My grandma and mom walked in with a rush. They were in a panic and yelling back and forth. then my dad came in grabbed some bags and walked out to the truck. I began to heat up when I heard my grandma said that they needed to rush to the hospital. Suddenly tears came down running down my eyes to my chin. I was scared and their panic got me into a panic. While my mother went to the bathroom to change, I went to my room grabbed a sweater and my little pink converse. I ran up to my mom and hugged her. I began to cry more and whinning how much I didn't want her to go to the hospital. I cried my eyes out just because I was so scared of what would happen to her. They tried calming me down, explaining to me that I will get to go in the morning with them, and that they will have a new surprise for me. My older sister took my hand and showed me an empty tray. She told me we can make shape up some cookies and finish the movie. She began making them but then I ran back to my mom as she headed for the door. My mom smiled and kissed me on the forhead, and whispered that everything was going to be okay. A red mark was left on my head so she wipped it off. Then I smelt the one thing that every kid and Santa Clause loved more than anything ... cookies. My tears started slowing down and so did my hiccups. My mom pointed me to the cookies, gave me my bear, and sat me down next to my older brother. She told me she had to go and that she'll have a surprise tomorrow. Right then I actually didnt get up and run again, I just said okay.

The reason I believe I remember this day so much is because it brought home my little brother, David. He is the last kid in our family and I was five so I was able to remember very well. Although I was able to remember I didn't really know that my mom was preganant. Yes I noticed she was bigger than usaul and people told me to touch her belly to feel kicks, but I never really understood. Then on top of that to me the hospital meant someone was going to die ever since our family dog died earlier that year on the way to the hospital. Everything that day really frightened me so much. I was small and its my mom going to the hospital, what other way can I react. The greatest part was not the cookies but a little brother I got to take care of and play with. Even though he had bad dirty diapers, I love that I do have him and the childbirth went well.