POETRY ANALYSIS #1: ELEGY FOR HOME

This poem was an assignment for our Creative Writing class—we had to write either an

ode or an elegy. Considering my history, which is laid pretty bare in this poem, I am prone more

to elegies than odes, or at least I have more fodder to make them.

That being said, this was a little hard to write, although not for the reasons that might be

assumed. I have no problem writing about the content of this poem, which follows an ABCB

rhyme scheme (the last line rhymes B twice, with the last segment always being “heartsick,

homesick”) and, for the most part, has 10 syllables in each first line, 11 syllables in each second

and third line, and 12 syllables in each last line. Writing has been cathartic for me, and it has

been one of the lifelines I clung to during darker times when my wounds were rawer. The reason

this poem was hard because of the syllable count that I wanted to try to keep consistent. I always

feel stifled when I adhere to poetic schemes, but I also wanted to rise to the challenge, because I

have trouble with that very thing. Overall, there are some lines I am really proud of, despite my

initial struggle with it.

Being that this poem is an elegy, the tone is somber, of course. It speaks of death, of

heartache, of losses that cannot be regained—mostly physical, but also mentally, emotionally,

and spiritually, which are expressed especially in the last stanza. The diction is blunt in places,

but also that was sort of ruled by the chosen rhyme scheme and the syllable count for each line.

Figurative language such as “My heart tends to clench as if squeezed by a fist” in the first

stanza lets the reader know this will not be a sweet poem of reminiscence, and “My brother and I

were cast to sea, adrift” is an apt metaphor for the unmooring we suffered with the death of both

of our parents.
 I do my best to paint the house where I spent thirteen years of my childhood with words,

from the age of about five until I turned eighteen and my father died. Lines like “A quaint two-

acre farmhouse fixer-upper” are the broad washes that give an idea of the house, and then details

are filled in with lines like “My mother put her touches everywhere / Hand-painted the walls

with vines, the floor with birds.” It evokes the home this house was, the personal stamp my

family put on the building, and then the abrupt twist of “Then our grandfather died in our

mudroom” kicks off the decay of my family and the end of our time with that one-hundred-year-

old house in Western Pennsylvania. I wanted the phrases to be abrupt, to mimic how it was for

us, each time there was a new loss to our family.