Elegy # 2

In her poem "Ode to History," Mary Jo bang uses repetition to show how giving up your memories to feel better would take away your best memories as well.  She writes about lying in bed with her son and how close she felt to him.  The title, "Ode to History" uses the word "history" that suggests the past and thus, her poem is written about her memories.  She writes how she would love to rid herself of her painful memories, but she realizes she would lose everything she's learned.  She writes, "I would know nothing/ of mothering. I would know nothing/ of death. I would know nothing/ of love"(4-7).  She realizes that by giving up her painful memories, she would give up everything she had learned in her life.  She would lose her motherly habits, and all that she loved.  By the end of the poem, she feels like her whole life will have been darkened by his death.  

In another poem, "Hell," she writes about her sons death and insinuates his afterlife.  She writes, "A murder of craven angels appeared"(8-9).  This is the most interesting line in the poem.  A "murder" is used to describe a group of crows, which are associated with scavengers, shamelessness, and death, but it is used to describe the angels which are generally associated with light, singing, and glorious afterlives.  Mary Jo Bang expresses her contempt of any kind of death and the feeling that she didn't want her son to die, even if he went to heaven, the angels stole him away.  This poem is my favorite so far of all her poems; it gives the freshest perspective on death.  I've also noticed how almost all of her poems are memories of her child when he was young.

Outside Reading #1 Elegy

For my outside reading book, I chose Elegy; A book of poems by Mary Jo Bang.  As the title states, this collection of poems were written to lament the death of her son.  Each poem is a different description of her emotions of her loss.  I chose to read this book because i enjoyed analyzing poetry in class; before then i believed that all poetry that didn't rhyme was artsy garbage.  This will also help me in analyzing shakespeare in the future and perhaps help me to enjoy a wider range of poetry as well.  

In the poem "Once," Mary Jo Bang uses imagery to bring back an old memory of her son under miserable circumstances.  She thinks back on how her life used to be, difficult yet satisfying, and compares it to how it is now; miserable.  She looks on an urn and remembers when her son was so young he believed she saved him from monsters.  She writes, "let's go back/ To the beginning."(9-10)  She means go back to a time when they were together; in her memory of the past when he was young.  By saying "let's go back," she informs the reader that they are indeed going to read about a past memory.  She then writes the memory, "You keep reminding me/ That I said I would never leave you to the monster"(10-11).  Only children believe in monsters, so we can assume this is an early memory of her son.  She brings the image of an innocent, sweet little kid walking through the woods and completely trusting his mother to protect him from evil.  Mary Jo uses imagery to show us how innocent children are and how sweet life used to be in our childhood.