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.