"Tariff" by Michelle Boisseau

Reading the title “Tariff”, I assumed the poem was going to be about some sort of tax or an actual fee. I soon realized that Michelle Boisseau’s poem was much deeper. After reading the first two lines, “It takes time to appreciate how I once/made a friend so unhappy the next night…” (Boisseau 1-2), it immediately grasped my attention to figure out what may be the aspects of this poem.

Michelle Boisseau was clever to use the word “Tariff” as the title of her poem. There are multiple meanings for the word but I’m assuming she used it to mean a system of duty, although I’m not sure. If she did, the meaning is kept a secret and remains unexplained or unknown which caused a lot of confusion while I was reading it. She explains how her friend died in the poem by saying, “... she steered off her Fiat Spider head on/ into an on-coming truck” (4-5). The narrator’s friend has been dead now for more than twenty years. She then expresses, “What I did to hurt her I won’t tell you—“(8).  I think the poet presented those qualities of not actually giving an answer to why she writes this poem the way she did, to be able to arose the curiosity amongst the readers. May be she wanted the readers to figure out what she did. The situation sounds like she did something that was awful but then again it might not be so bad.

Another thing I thought was unusual was the fact that this wasn’t the first time the poet wrote about this, she explains, ”While I go about turning this into a poem again/ turning over heavy marl, and garden/ in spring, and the wind picks up, flinging soil against my neck…” (11-14). I’m confused to way she includes an illustration of her in the garden turning over marl which is a type of fertilizer, then how the wind picks up tossing the soil all among her facial area. I get the feeling that the poet is demonstrating that the narrator feels guilty for the loss of her unhappy friend dying.  It represents how she really feels and that she has to pay the price by revisiting the memories every now and then.

This poem makes me anger and annoyed just because it’s not straight forward. You have to be able to brainstorm and come up with your own interpretation about the poem. The two question I would ask is why can’t the narrator tell what she did to hurt her? And why is it such a big secret? The overall message that I received from this poem and the narrator was that if you ever feel like something is your fault you will continuously have to pay for it.
 

Source:www.wordpress.com

However, I consider the poem as a serious work, for the reasons being that it’s a mystery. Putting aside all of my confusion and anger towards this poem, I enjoyed the concept of the poem and how the poet kept it obscure, not expressing the meaning clearly or plainly to understand, but for the readers to come up with their own perception.

 

Two Love Poems

"Please Come Late" and the "Hate Poem" are two poems I found similar in 180 More Extraordinary Poems for Every Day. The two poems are alike due to the fact they both are based upon love.

“Please Come Late” by Hugo Williams is a poem about a girl who wants the guy to come late to whatever the place she is talking about. The girl (narrator) states at the beginning "Please come late, so that I have almost given you up..." (line 1-2). By the narrator begging for him to come late so that she has almost given him up, explains that she still wants him to come because she still have feelings for him. She prays that he is lost so she will never see him again. She wants him to come extremely late for her not to even notice he isn't there. Then she says "Make me suffer" (line 10). In this poem you see her thoughts as to wanting to suffer and wanting to miss him, but then she expresses how she has decided she doesn't want to see him. She go on by saying "I don’t really like you. I'd rather be on my own. I know it is all over between us, but I go on sitting here..." (22-25).  The girl (narrator) obviously has feelings for him but she doesn't want him to come near her until she has falling madly in love with him.

"Hate Poem" by Julie Sheehan is a "love-hate" poem. The narrator which is a girl, uses the term "Hate" multiple times throughout the poem. The term "Hate" in the poem really means love. Whoever the girl (narrator) is talking about she is obviously in love with him. When she says "Everything about me hates everything about you" (line 2). She is clearly trying to say she loves everything about him. It seems to me like she is in denial that she really loves him but is fearful of admitting it. "The flick of my wrist hates you. The way I hold my pencil hates you" (3-4). And she continues to go on. The way she expresses how she hates him makes me realize that she is constantly thinking about him. Instead of her expressing her true feelings for him, she avoids doing so by saying she "Hates" him in a harsh manner.  "My lungs, duplicitous, twins, expand with the utter validity of my hate, which can never have enough of you..." (line 23). That line clearly proves how madly in love she is with him.

 

 In both of the love poems they demonstrate love in a similar way by hiding their feelings or in other words not expressing their true feelings. Both of the narrators are madly in love with a guy. They both just have their own way of expressing it. In "Please Come Late" she wants him to make her miss him and suffer so that she can fall in love with him. Whereas in the "Hate Poem" she harshly uses the word "Hate" when deep down inside she loves him but just in denial. Both of the poems illustrate love in a very unique way but yet by reading between the lines you know exactly how they really feel towards their significant other.

"THE ALBATROSS" By Kate Bass

Reading the poem out loud the first time I had no idea what it was about. So by reading the poem about five more times I really tried to understand the meaning of it. I didn't know what albatross meant so I looked it up and it is a seemingly inescapable moral or emotional burden, as of guilt or responsibility. Then I was able to get an idea of what the poem could mean. The narrator of this poem is a woman who I think is known to be "The Albatross". It seems to me that she fakes the love she has for her husband/boyfriend by putting on the necklace I'm assuming he bought for her. She attempts to only put on the necklace right before he comes home. The woman explains how she reaches down to pick up her child, so she must have a child for him. She also seem like she's a stay at home mom.

 

Source:www.rubylane.com

In the first stanza when she puts on the necklace she says how she hope to remember him and to think that he won't forget. Could it be that they relationship is falling apart? Maybe she wants to remember how he used to be or how their relationship use to be. What does the necklace symbolize? She describes the necklace "a blue that used to match my eyes" (line). What does she mean by that? How could her eye color change? Could it mean that she doesn't have eyes for him anymore, meaning she's no longer attracted to him?

In the second stanza, the first line, she states, "The necklace lies heavy on my skin" (line 7). Could the heaviness of the necklace symbolize that it is an emotional burden? Is she stressed or overwhelmed? If so, why? I think since the child might be his she may feel like she is bound or obliged to stay with him for the sake of their child. Does she feel like if she took his daughter and left him would she be the blame of the child not growing up with a father figure in her life? Does she feel like she is going to be accountable for explaining to her daughter why she left her father when she grows up? It seems to me that the couple is fairly young. Are they or were they teenage parents at the time they had their little girl?

The mother wishes away to afternoon and waits to hear the gate open and the key in the door. She illustrates how she hasn't done the laundry or put up the toys on the floor. I'm getting a sense that she has some sort of rebellion. She is probably tired of feeling like she is bound to do those things simply because they have a daughter together. Maybe she doesn’t want to take the responsibilities of the role of a wife, but at the same time she's thinking about her daughter.

Source:www.dipity.com

At the end, she explains how his voice doesn't sound familiar anymore but strange. Why is that so? This poem is very interesting to me but it is frustrating that I can't really grasp the meaning. This poem left me with a ton of question that I want answers to. Maybe the narrator left out so much information so the readers can brainstorm their own meaning of the poem.

 

The book Stitches: A Memoir

Stitches is a brilliant graphic novel that tells you a story of David's life growing up and how he was abused, as well as lacking love from his parents.

Source:www.wordpress.com

I remembered when I first bought this book for English class flipping through the pages and wondering why we were going to read and discuss a comic book. It was kind of weird as I begin to read a couple of pages before I went to class, but as soon as class started and we begin to discuss about Stitches it was fairly interesting.

As we were assigned to read part of the book for the next class day I caught myself reading the whole book that night. It’s not long but it actually caught my attention with all the graphic pictures and how he was so creative with all the expressions that he showed in the book.  Facial expressions and his clever illustrations told a story alone. He developed narrative and emotional reactions with almost ten chronological pages of only panels without using any text. This was an incredible way to capture the reader’s attention.

From all the books I have read, I have never picked up or even thought about a graphic novel. I guess I never gave it a chance. With no choice for reading Stitches, I’m thrilled that I had a chance to discover a different way of reading. I have changed my perspective on graphic novels completely.

The author made a great decision to tell a story about David’s life through pictures. I honestly think that if he wrote about his life the traditional way with no pictures, it wouldn’t be as interesting to read. By reading a graphic novel you have the luxury to read it three different ways. You can go through the book not looking at the photographs and only reading the dialogue. You also can go through the book by only observing the pictures and try to get a sense of what the story is trying to explain. Lastly, you have the choice of reading the dialogue and observing the pictures at the same time. I did all three. By doing that, I learned that it’s a great way to get a better understanding of the book. 

Source:wwe.tumblr.com

 

The fact that there wasn’t any color except black, white, and grey was ingenious. It was original even though comic books are also sometimes black and white. The color scheme throughout the book symbolizes all of the emotions and his dark childhood. There were pictures in the novel that had different angles that was unique. It wasn’t always parallel towards the character but more upward to actually get a better view of the illustration. For instance, like when he was in the elevator. He did a great job showing all the different pictures of the elevator opening and David pressing all of the buttons at once. The author also showed him observing the fetus and in the manner of him imagining the fetus jumping out the jar and running after him. The whole book is amazing how he took the readers on an adventure about how his life was growing up with the creative drawings.