Reading Response Week 5

My reading response for this week is on “Man and Wife.” I thought this poem was very powerful. The way “the rising sun in war paint dyes us red” just creates a scene. We can picture the sun beaming in on this couple, but it’s not a good thing because this couple is going through a rough time. She’s got his back toward him and he can’t get past the barrier she’s put up between them. Though, the words chosen to describe that scene are her holding the pillow to her hollows like a child. Her tirade “breaks like the Atlantic Ocean” on his head. While this comes on a bit strong, it really shows how deeply this is affecting him. It works that he's a little melodramatic about it because it's dramatic, all consuming moment to him.

This poem also doesn’t confine itself to meter or rhyme. Some of the lines are long while others are short. The first stanza is rather long and then there is a turn to this little short six line stanza to explain the current moment between the couple. I like how this is done because the last stanza becomes more prominent to me. That break makes me take notice that the next stanza is purposely taken away from the other. So, I think that this shift is important. It was because the end of the first stanza talked about how they met. The second stanza is the narrator saying, “Well, twelve years when by and now she’s turned away from me. I don’t know what to do because I can’t help her.”