Stay_Golden
09-29-2014, 11:57 PM
I need to do an explication of Joan Crate's "To Allen on his Wedding Day", but, as with all of Crate's poetry, I find this poem very confusing as to what it's saying. I need to look at literary devices used, word choice, metaphor, sounds etc, but I'm so confused, it's hard to properly analyze.
If anyone can help me out with some more insights, I'd REALLY appreciate it, I'm so lost on this one. I kind of get the first paragraph, the wine analogy is the narrator and her brother being mocked for their Native heritage. She also uses cold analogies a lot in the poem, then ends it with the word heat.
One thing to keep in mind is this poem (as all other poems in "Pale as Real Ladies") is written from the perspective of Native Canadian author and poet, Pauline Johnson, so Pauline, though not the author, is the implied narrator. Allen was the name of her brother, and Eva her sister.
To Allen on his Wedding Day
What is it that kept us alone
Our mixed blood, a man at a cocktail party
suggested, like ruined wine, white
tainted with red, the inconsistency.
He dropped his monocle to stare at me
intently with his near-sighted eye,
and I laughed, moved on to graciously
accept the comfort of strangers.
In my bed at the McLaren,
I pull blankets over my bobbed hair,
shiver with cold. My Charles had left
before I arrived, and winter
nights in Winnipeg a cold black wire
tying off each solitary nerve before dawn.
Does Eva tremble this way?
So proper she would not allow card games
nor drink, announced she would rather not marry.
When she left her fiancee, Mother's
white lips pursed her dark face.
And now, righteous, does she sleep warm?
We sat side by side, two sister
crows at Henry's bed, waiting,
could not weep.
There were no other visitors,
yet he would not permit a kiss of greeting,
cringed at the flutter of our hands.
His rooms were furnished with alabastar
statues, hovered snow-blind, fearful
of Spring. At night he awoke,
with mouthfuls of flesh, sweating,
choking on no one's name.
There is only you Allen,
with that woman from the Reserve
who would not let you alone.
Is there no shame? Eva muttered,
lips bitten, permanently pale,
and me ice-splintered in this hotel room
with steam pipes that chatter
the numb night long.
I send you my best wishes,
dear brother, with your new bride
wild with heat.
If anyone can help me out with some more insights, I'd REALLY appreciate it, I'm so lost on this one. I kind of get the first paragraph, the wine analogy is the narrator and her brother being mocked for their Native heritage. She also uses cold analogies a lot in the poem, then ends it with the word heat.
One thing to keep in mind is this poem (as all other poems in "Pale as Real Ladies") is written from the perspective of Native Canadian author and poet, Pauline Johnson, so Pauline, though not the author, is the implied narrator. Allen was the name of her brother, and Eva her sister.
To Allen on his Wedding Day
What is it that kept us alone
Our mixed blood, a man at a cocktail party
suggested, like ruined wine, white
tainted with red, the inconsistency.
He dropped his monocle to stare at me
intently with his near-sighted eye,
and I laughed, moved on to graciously
accept the comfort of strangers.
In my bed at the McLaren,
I pull blankets over my bobbed hair,
shiver with cold. My Charles had left
before I arrived, and winter
nights in Winnipeg a cold black wire
tying off each solitary nerve before dawn.
Does Eva tremble this way?
So proper she would not allow card games
nor drink, announced she would rather not marry.
When she left her fiancee, Mother's
white lips pursed her dark face.
And now, righteous, does she sleep warm?
We sat side by side, two sister
crows at Henry's bed, waiting,
could not weep.
There were no other visitors,
yet he would not permit a kiss of greeting,
cringed at the flutter of our hands.
His rooms were furnished with alabastar
statues, hovered snow-blind, fearful
of Spring. At night he awoke,
with mouthfuls of flesh, sweating,
choking on no one's name.
There is only you Allen,
with that woman from the Reserve
who would not let you alone.
Is there no shame? Eva muttered,
lips bitten, permanently pale,
and me ice-splintered in this hotel room
with steam pipes that chatter
the numb night long.
I send you my best wishes,
dear brother, with your new bride
wild with heat.