Suitable for 13+
The mere idea of poetry used to make me shudder in fear. In my first week at university I wrote an extremely opinionated piece on how I liked one William Carlos Williams poem and that was probably the only poem I would ever like in my life. A slight bit serious but mostly joking, my tutor was quick to say that they were certain that would change. It has.
My first year studying English at last convinced me that poetry, as a form, is just as beautiful and meaningful as the novel. Sadly this was not a sentiment I had prescribed to in the past. To remedy all my years of being mind numbingly bored by poetry, I’ll be posting some of the ones I like best and writing about them. Feel free to comment any of your own opinions, poetry is refreshingly open to analysis (unlike The Great Gatsby which some of you may be studying or set to study, which has been done to death).
My choice this month is 'Gretel In Darkness' by Louise Glück, the very final poem I studied last year. Here it is below:
This is the world we wanted.
All who would have seen us dead
are dead. I hear the witch's cry
break in the moonlight through a sheet
of sugar: God rewards.
Her tongue shrivels into gas . . .
Now, far from women's arms
and memory of women, in our father's hut
we sleep, are never hungry.
Why do I not forget?
My father bars the door, bars harm
from this house, and it is years.
No one remembers. Even you, my brother,
summer afternoons you look at me as though
you meant to leave,
as though it never happened.
But I killed for you. I see armed firs,
the spires of that gleaming kiln--
Nights I turn to you to hold me
but you are not there.
Am I alone? Spies
hiss in the stillness, Hansel,
we are there still and it is real, real,
that black forest and the fire in earnest.
When looking at a poem, I’ve learned that you need to read it a few times and let it wash over you. What are your initial thoughts? Do you like it? Do you dislike it? Why? What atmosphere do you think the poem has? I say atmosphere rather than tone because ‘tone’ is more a real thing whereas atmosphere is more your perception of the poem. For example, my perception of this poem is that it’s very dark. The “atmosphere” is extremely depressing. Whilst this can be a barrier, a lot of the supposed best poetry ever written isn’t exactly all sunshine and daisies. If it makes you uncomfortable, why?
'Gretel In Darkness', with its unusual poetic form of four six line stanzas, reunites us with a hugely familiar fairytale character. The Gretel of the story is the Gretel of the creepy children’s tale Hansel and Gretel, all grown up. The poet is imagining what happened to Gretel after she and her brother were reunited with their father. It turns a sugary happy ending on its head and makes us think – what if Gretel were a real person?
I like this poem a lot because I think it is very dark, very beautiful, very vivid. We can see Gretel and her family, we can see the ‘’armed firs’ acting as guards, we can see the witch (probably warty, let’s be honest) tumbling into the fire. Fairytales are made to stir our fears and our fantasies – do you think a poem can do it just as well? Leave any comments below!
POEM SOURCE: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/gretel-in-darkness/
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