Kelsey's Explication
Situation: Alzheimer's by Kelly Cherry is a poem about a man with the disease who comes home from the hospital. She tells us what is in the man's suitcase and about his house, which he remembers. The mood towards the character is somewhat harsh calling him "crazy" (856). The speaker is a woman who is older, his wife or significant other, and this is told to us by the line "standing here in the doorway" (856). The tone of the poem is that the narrator seems frustrated that she has to take care of someone who remembers the house more than her and that he doesn't remember things.
Structure: There are 29 lines in the poem. There are no stanzas in the poem and sentences end in the middle of lines so I would say this is free form. I think Kelly Cherry wrote the poem like this because she is trying to illustrate that someone is struggling to be normal or follow the rules, she is illustrating that she is different. Images in this poem are given by association such as what is in the suitcase and what he remembers as a young man about the house. The mood is from remembering simple things to figuring who people are that you spent your whole like with, a struggle from realization to confusion. The syntax of the poem includes 12 sentences that are complicated in the usual "noun, verb" order. The punctuation includes a lot of enjambment, some sentences end inthe middle of a line and they are all different size sentences. Cherry is also changing ideas, maybe showing how people with Alzheimer’s switch from idea to idea quickly because they forget what they are talking about. The title is pretty obvious that the poem is about a man with Alzheimer’s who has to remember who he is coming home to. Alzheimer's is defined as dementia. It is incurable and a terminal disease.
Language: The word choice is simple. There were a couple words and phrases I had to look up. The phrase "claw the mortar" means that when the two plants are fighting for space they are scrapping against the bonding substance between the bricks or stones. The word "reifies" means what the phrase before it said to harden it. There are many moods or attitudes I get from words in the poem. I never liked hospitals so right off the bat I didn't have a good feeling of a happy ending. Suitcase is one word where I thought of going or coming from somewhere and sometimes the place you come from isn't always good, such as a hospital. When she talks about his remembering the house I think of the house being a neutral place that is familiar to him. Finally, the phrase "fiddling with emotion" was very depressing to me because she wasn't just talking about his emotions but all the people who are affected by the disease. I think she put that phrase on a line by itself because it is important to point out just how many people are affected emotionally by this disease. There are many examples of imagery that I found in this poem.
"his mind rattling"- sick and confused
"roses and columbine slug it out for space" - not only talking about the space on the brick wall but also the space in his mind to be remembered.
"the peculiar screeching of strings" - the man used to like the music but now all he hears is screeching and noise.
"fiddling with emotion" - again his brain is confusing his feelings and making him change.
Musical Devices: There is no rhyme scheme, rhythm or meter, assonance, alliteration, or consonance repetition. This poem is a simple poem and these elements are not present.
Terry
Shana
Maria