Poem Responses

The first poem I related to was Rite of Passage by Sharon Olds. I liked this poem because I’ve been there. The poem is what Sharon experienced at her sons 6 year old son’s birthday. Not that this is a secret to anyone that is exactly how young boys act together. It doesn’t matter much on size but on who were the oldest, being the oldest meant that you were bigger, stronger, and smarter then everybody younger then you. At that age nothing else really matters, everyone is considered an enemy or an opponent till you both agree on something, like together we could defeat someone else. I can’t think of a time where I did this but I know it happened. It makes me think do we ever really grow out of this? When meeting someone new are people as nervous as I am? Once finding something in common I feel better. Ah memories, sums up this poem for me.

The next poem I related to was The Women From The Thirteenth Floor Window by Joy Harjo. I also liked this poem. This poem is basically about a woman’s choice to or not to jump out of a window and kill herself. She thinks about all the things that are wrong with her life and all she is going to lose if she jumps. She see’s other people that have done it and how it has affected the people close to the jumper. But does it all really matter? Every day the person thinks all these thoughts before climbing back inside but will there be a day she thinks all these things but decides that today is going to be different and jump. I just can relate to this poem so much, I would never think about doing this but I do think about all that is happening in my life. I think about all the things that have gone right, those that were not planned, and how things could have been different. I think that when people finally do decide that leaping is a better choice than getting back inside that they had to do what was best for them. Some people call it selfish but I would never call that selfish, you have to put yourself above everyone because no one is going to put you before themselves.

Photo from http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/olds.html