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How to Read a Poem - Page 2

© Linda Sue Grimes

The mother, though, is somewhat perturbed by all this grading; after all running a household is not school, so stop all this evaluating, for goodness sakes, and so she says, "Wait 'til they learn / I'm dropping out." Keeping the school metaphor, she employs the verbs "learn" and "dropping out." Now the question is, what does the mother mean by saying she's dropping out? Does she mean she's leaving the household, divorcing the husband, abandoning the children? Does she mean she's going to commit suicide? I suggest that these measures are too drastic. The situation is not that ominous. After all, her "marks" are really good ones: A, B+, I (which can be replaced with an A); average, with the potential to be above average; and pass. The family is not negatively marking her. Why would she be motivated to abandon the family or commit suicide for getting such good marks? I suggest that her "dropping out" is a mild exaggeration and probably indicates that she is no longer going to care if they evaluate her. She's dropping out of the school metaphor; she will no longer consider herself open to evaluation. The poem is too playful to allow for the dire interpretation of family abandonment and suicide. The school metaphor makes it playful. In order to hint at abandonment or suicide I would argue that a speaker might use a legal metaphor, claim that she had been judged wrongly, imply that she was committed to prison unjustly; then the speaker might imply family abandonment or suicide. Now which claim makes more sense?

It should be obvious that the first claim is preposterous, and I'll concede that in formulating it, I have exaggerated, but only a little. I do get essays that are much too close to a reading like that one. And many students coming into my English Composition II bring the notion that "a poem can mean anything you want it to mean." The notion is widespread. Walking to the library one day, I overheard a heated conversation between a young woman and her companion. I heard her say distinctly: "But I write poetry, and poetry doesn't have to make sense." What is the point of writing anything that doesn't make sense? Words have meanings, and whether or not you choose to acknowledge their meanings, they still have them. When you say the word "sun," those who know that word will think of the big star that warms the Earth. They will not think of chocolate, socks, or death. Their first thought is the object that the word "sun" was designated to "mean." There is no problem with this understanding until we encounter that word (or any word) in a poem. Many students have inferred from their early encounters with poetry that words in poems never retain their real-life, prose meaning. So "sun" in a poem does not ever mean that big star that warms our planet; it will mean something different and only the teacher knows what it is. Even as they believe it, students balk at the notion that only the teacher has the answer and therefore come away with the idea that since words always mean something different in poems, they must mean anything you want them to mean. I have had students tell me that they never got the same thing out of a poem that the teacher did. And the students think they were always wrong, and the teacher was always right. This situation makes no sense to the student, and so in self-defense, they come away with the idea that "a poem can mean anything you want it to mean." At least that gives the students some self-esteem; it's better than believing that only the teacher has an answer, and the student will forever remain clueless about finding the answer.

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