The Grief Poems

Grief is the mental suffering. It can be fear, mourning, heart ache, or just misery. "If you Don't" and "Snowbanks North of the House" both deal with mental suffering. 

In "If you Don't" the narrator is beyond negative. She pretty much lives in fear. "If you don't have a dog/ your neighbor will not poison it" (Thiel 1-2). She's implying if you don't have a dog, it won't die leaving you be the one to cope with it. In other words, don't put yourself in a situation where it's going to hurt you in the end. The entire poem is going from positive to negative. It's like giving a compliment, but then taking it back. The poem only gives the negative outcome of every positive thing. "the past cannot devour you/ when you stop moving for a brief moment/ Long enough to let the sorrow/ catch the joy you never feel" (28-30). This is stating if you don't feel joy, you wont feel sorrow because "there will be nothing left to heal"(33).

"Snowbanks North of the House" starts off with nature, "Those great sweeps of snow that stop suddenly six feet from the house..." (Bly1). Snow is nature that is uncontrollable and what a coincidence death is as well. She broadly puts six feet, which is often know when people pass away, they are laid to rest six feet below. "The father grieves for his son, and will not leave the room/ where the coffin stands" (10). The father lost his son and is grieving. Bly uses a unique metaphor for someone to reflect their entire life, meaning past, present, and future. The hill is the metaphor to this poem that can relate to anyone's personal experience. "And the man in the black coat turns, and goes back down the /hill. No one knows why he came, or why he turned away, and did not/ climb the hill (15-16). This is my favorite part of the poem cause any one can connect to this. This poem isn't beating around the bush. It's flat out saying that the hill (being the metaphor) is their past experience, and obviously the man in the black coat went back down the hill instead of going up. This is implying that he was scared to keep on climbing, because it could only cause more pain. 

Both these interesting poems have grieving similarities. The narrators just come about it in a different way, but     feel the same way. One just comes off negative and lives in fear, while the other is coping and lives in fear as will, being hesitant about climbing the hill. Both of these can't move forward. They only see hurt, sorrow, and misery. They both live in fear to move forward. They both can't take the risk, because they're terrified of one negative outcome compared to the hundreds of positive outcomes. These have to be my favorite poems, because we all know people like this, it's easy to relate and understand. It is like chains holding them down from moving forward. Everyone deals with grief in a different way. These two poems deal with it in fear.