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How to Read a Poem

© Linda Sue Grimes

If you believe a poem can mean anything you want it to mean, let's talk.

Let's start with a poem:

Marks
by Linda Pastan

My husband gives me an A
for last night's supper,
an incomplete for my ironing,
a B plus in bed.
My son says I am average,
an average mother, but if
I put my mind to it
I could improve.
My daughter believes
in Pass/Fail and tells me
I pass. Wait 'til they learn
I'm dropping out.

Okay, based on the theory that a poem can mean anything you want it to mean, I offer the following claim for the meaning of this poem:

This poems means that death is part of all our lives, and we should learn to accept it. In the poem "Marks" stands for people. Some of us are A's, some of us are B+'s, some of us are average, some pass, and some fail. The speaker of the poem is a gay male, and his husband has just died. He "dropped out" -- because he wasn't happy with the speaker leaving the ironing "incomplete." He probably needed his shirt, and it wasn't ironed, so he had to wear it wrinkled. The speaker of the poem believes that his children are weird for calling him mother, so he decided to commit suicide too; we know this, because he says in the last line, "I'm dropping out." But all of this could have been avoided if they had realized that death is part of life, and we must learn to accept it.

Now compare this claim about meaning to the following:

In the poem "Marks" the speaker is using a school metaphor to vent her frustration at being constantly evaluated by her family. "Marks" means grades, and each family member has his or her own system of grading the mother: the husband uses letter grades, giving his wife an "A / for last night's supper." She gets and "I"--incomplete--for ironing, because no doubt she didn't finish and probably left some of his clothes unironed. All of the grades are good grades, except for the ironing, but then an incomplete can be converted to an "A" as soon as the work is finished. The son is less discriminating than the husband; he just claims his mom is average, but he also thinks she has potential to become above average "if / [she puts her] mind to it." The daughter uses the pass/fail system, and the good news is the mother passes.

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