Re: Love Poem

Linda Pastan, Love Poem

"...as headlong as our creek after thaw..."

Love is often described as an overwhelming rush of emotions, a feeling so strong it sweeps away everything in its path and so deep that it permeates every part of the mind and soul. It's no wonder, then, that most poetry, while able to express some of its fierceness and tenderness alike, falls short of truly putting the feeling into words. However, Linda Pastan's Love Poem comes admirably far in this task.

The poem itself speaks on the process of writing a love poem, highlighting the place of the creative process in this attempt to embody love in writing, as well as expressing the odd challenge in such an attempt. In addition, the structure of the poem contains frequent line breaks, constant enjambment, and a complete lack of punctuation. Therefore, the poet effectively characterizes her attempt to write a love poem as a long, flowing stream of feeling and emotion, not quite materialized into "proper writing" with correct punctuation and grammar. However, it could easily be argued that a poem of love does not necessarily need to be "correctly written," this poem, like the rushing creek in the text, is "so swollen with runoff" that it brings new life and meaning to itself, simply by virtue of the emotion it embodies.

Another characteristic commonly attributed to love is its ability to inspire emotions from ecstatic joy to unbelievable pain and distress in those under its influence. Thus, some people, often those who have had their hearts broken too many times, become cynical or frightened of love and shy away from it when they see it coming. The lovers in this poem, although they may not be true cynics, do appreciate how dangerously intense love can be, and feel the need to "step back" from the water's edge. However, they still "grab each other" for comfort and courage, showing that while they are indeed wary, they are willing to take the plunge as long as they have each other.

Works Cited:

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2011. Print.

“Rushing Creek In Spring Great Smoky Mountains National Park Tennessee.” WallpaperWeb. Web. 26 Sept. 2012.

Re: The Yellow Wallpaper

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper

"One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin."

The Yellow Wallpaper is a story of illness - the kind of illness that takes hold of the mind and shakes it about until one's sanity has been torn to pieces. Although this idea is indimidating enough, even more so is the fact that such illness can progress incredibly quickly without the victim even realizing what's happening. The narrator of this tale, a woman suffering from an unspecified kind of depression or hysteria, never becomes truly aware of her situation; as the story progresses, she appears to recover from her original symptoms, but the wallpaper of her bedroom drives her mad in an altogether more frightening and uncontrollable way.

Gilman makes use of the fact that the narrator is "writing" this story as some sort of diary, and alters the syntax to show the narrator's current state of mind. For instance, the first few pages are filled with fluid, elegantly-constructed sentences, describing the wallpaper as "dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate and provoke study" and using terms like "congenial" and "romantic felicity" (316). However, by the end of the story, her writing style has degenerated into sentences like "This bedstead is fairly gnawed!" and "But I must get to work" (327). Her sentences are now short and choppy, utilizing simpler vocabulary - seeming more like random observances about her surroundings than coherent trains of thought, and clearly showing her deteriorating mental health. Taken into context with the fact that she "[bites] off a little piece at one corner" (327) of the bed and "[keeps] on creeping" (328) around and around the room despite being aware of her husband's alarm, it's obvious that a summer trip out to the country has done far more harm than good for this woman.


Works Cited:

Booth, Alison, and Kelly J. Mays. Norton Introduction to Literature. 10th ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2011. Print.

Photograph of a Woman Examining Yellow Wallpaper. “Jake’s Take on ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.” Jake’s Take. Web. 12 Sept. 2012.