Jack Reese

LIT 2220
Professor Williams
31 July 2016
Poetry Essay
LYDIA DAVIS - Head, Heart
Heart weeps.
Head tries to help heart.
Head tells heart how it is, again:
You will lose the ones you love. They will all go. But even the earth will
go, someday.
5 Heart feels better, then.
But the words of head do not remain long in the ears of heart.
Heart is so new to this.
I want them back, says heart.
Head is all heart has.
10 Help, head. Help heart.
Although Head, Heart is not one of Lydia Davis most known
works it is a very emotional and empathetic. Despite the length of the
poem, it is still very capable of eliciting a certain response. The poem
is so simple yet brilliant. We never are told anything about a setting,
time or any thing a normal poem contains. Through personification,
diction, and syntax we are able to live this story. This poem tells all
about the constant struggle and the relationship between the head and
the heart or mind and emotions. Davis personifies our head and heart
to show the true emotion that we may go through when we have
conflicting interests of head and heart.
This poem dives into the emotional time we go through after
heartbreak. This poem could very well be about death and the loss of
that relationship but after reading about Davis and her divorce it is
most likely about heartbreak. Many times after we go through a
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significant breakup or loss we cant decide what to listen to, our head
or our heart. I think the theme of this poem is the process of getting
over a breakup. Some times we dont know which way to turn. We
often think to ourselves, Where do I go from here? It always seems
like we want to listen to our head because it knows best but we have
trouble not following what our hearts want.
This poem is all about love. Just as we might have a relationship,
our head and heart have their own relationship. They try to help each
other but it doesnt always work. Davis says, Head tries to help
heart. (2) When we are happy or in a relationship with someone we
like a lot our head and heart work in perfect symmetry but as soon as
we experience a hardship in the relationship it gets all mixed up. The
confliction that Head and Heart go through during this is completely
natural. When one is confused, the other tries to compensate for that.
This emotional response from the heart is completely natural. It is
natural for us to want to follow our heart. It is so ironic how similar the
relationship of Head and Heart is to actual human relationships. Often
times we become dependent on the other person in the relationship
and when its over we dont know how to compensate for that. Davis
says, Head is all heart has. (9) The heart is feeling the exact same
way we would after the end of a relationship. Which is why naturally
we want to follow our hearts.

This is a narrative poem with an omniscient speaker. The poem

never describes or says who the speaker is but it is fairly easy to tell it
is a third party that is telling the story. Our book describes this as a
poem of a story.

The speaker does not develop over the course of

the poem but the figures (Head and Heart) do. The heart goes from
feeling sad to feeling a little bit better to feeling sad again. After
breakups it is literally an emotional rollercoaster. The heart feels better
one moment but then is back to feeling sad in line 10 because heart
realizes how they need the other person, Heart feels better, then. (5)
Every day is different and we never know how we are going to be until
that day comes. We never know when we will move on either. The only
way to get our head and hearts working together again in perfect
symmetry is to get over the loss of relationship.
This poem is so interesting because it is ironic, emotional, and
relatable. Everyone has gone through some emotional breakup or even
losing the relationship of a close friend. We all understand the
conflicting interests of our head and our heart. We never know which
way to turn or which way to go. Davis tells a brilliant story about this
emotional time. Sometimes we have issues with coping of losing
someone and our head has to comfort our heart. Such rational
explanations give us comfort, but that comfort is itself temporary; we

1 Mays, Kelly J. "Bookshelf Online." Bookshelf Online. W.W. Norton &

Company, 2014. Web. 31 July 2016.
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still miss those weve lost and have to keep calling on our heads to
help our hearts cope. (p. 453)

Works Cited Page

1. Mays, Kelly J. "Bookshelf Online." Bookshelf Online. W.W. Norton
& Company, 2014. Web. 31 July 2016.
2. Goodyear, Dana. "Long Story Short." The New Yorker. The New
Yorker, 10 Mar. 2014. Web. 31 July 2016.